Traveling and Arrival in Stavropol Russia

Dave and I left on Thursday May 12th on a flight from Minneapolis to Paris, Paris to Moscow, Moscow to Stavropol. All in all, about 27 hours of travel.

Most of our travel was pretty non-eventful.    Highlights - 4 hours of Zamfir - Master of the Pan-Flute and Only You Can Make my Dreams Come True....at the Vnukovo airport in Moscow. Nice new airport, but they need an expanded sound track. One CD doesn't cut it.

Then on to the oldest plane that I have ever seen.  Dave told me tonight that most countries have banned the Tu-154M from use because of the numerous problems they have had.  (Think I would rather not have known that fact.)  We got into the plane from the tail end - wow, crazy.  Really wanted to take a picture, but after almost getting arrested last time I tried to take a picture of a Russian plane, decided not to try that again.
It was funny on the plane the flight attendent did the whole safety routine in Russian and then added (for us, the only two none Russian passengers) fasten seat belt and something about snails and bells I think.  But perhaps I was tired...Dave thought it might have been aisle's and something else....either way lost in translation.

Arrived in Stavropol at about midnight.  Was thrilled to have Alex and his wife Lyuba met us and take us to our hotel!  

The next day we were to meet Alex in the lobby at 11:00 a.m.    Turns out my Ipad did not pick up the local time (seems to have stayed on Paris time) and we managed to completely oversleep.

We then took the 2 1/2 hour drive to the orphanage.   Seemed very long, as we were quite anxious to see Anya and Ruslan.    The drive was actually quite pretty through rolling hills and farm land.  Reminded me a bit of Eastern Montana.

When we arrived, we met with the Director.  She updated us on the status on the kids.  They had received updated medical exams, and all came back good.  Was hard to listen, as I really wanted to see the  kids.  We made it through and signed lots of paperwork, and finally were able to see Anya and Ruslan.

Only after signing all the required documents of this trip, we were able to see Ruslan and Anya. 

It was good to reconnect with the kids.

Anya and our interpreter, Kate showing off their glamorous new bracelets.

Working on thumbs up signs.

Here is our interpreter and Anya showing off their glamorous new bracelets.