Bringing Dariya home: We made it to Dariya's region

After a 7 hour sleep (would have been longer but, the cute English guy woke up at 4:45 and he isn't so quiet in the morning, I guess that is where Aidan gets it)  We had a lovely breakfast and cup of "American coffee" (that is what the waitress called it not me LOL) at a small coffee shop down the street from the local TGIFridays. 

Eugene, one of the drivers picked us up at 11am and we headed for the bus station.  As Dariya's city is about 150 miles away from the capital we took a bus.  Actually it was more like a 15 passenger van you would see as an airport shuttle with greyhound type bus seats.    There is no time on the bus they leave about every hour when the bus gets full. 

Jason and I were the third and fourth person on the bus so we waited for about 25 minutes until the van was full then headed south.  It took us about 2 1/2 hours to get here.  The ride was a nice trip, comfortable van with one stop for filling up the van and drinks and restroom break for us.  The van had no air conditioning but, it was pretty comfortable until we slowed down or stopped then the air didn't come in the vents.  The driver decided to have a cigarette an hour into the trip but, thankfully we were in the back seats and could barely smell it.  Overall it was a great trip.  We enjoyed the nice scenery, it was like driving through Wisconsin except with more trees, less cows and all the road signs are in Russian. 



Didn't know there were weeping willow trees over here



Luda, our parent liason, arranged for a local driver to meet us at the bus station to bring us to our apartment.  We are staying in the same apartment the Brownings and the Eichorns stayed in earlier this year.  At our apartment we were met by Olga and Victoria, friends of the landlord who doesn't speak English.  We have talked with Olga when we were at home to make arrangements for the apartment and she checked on us while we were in the capital to make sure we were ok. 

Our home for the next few weeks, 2 bedroom apt for $30 a night!

Victoria lives close by and teaches english at the college in town.  They spent a couple hours with us helping translate for Maria the landlord.  It took a bit getting our internet hooked up because we needed a password from the internet company but, a couple hours later and a technician visit we are all up and running. 

Olga even took Jason to the local supermarket and showed him the bank and the way to the orphanage.  We are only about a 10 -15 minute walk from the orphanage.  We will walk there tomorrow and see the grounds even though we can't go in until Tuesday to meet our girl.

I took many pictures out the bus window on our trip down as Dariya was born in this city we will visit the town and take many pictures to make into a book for her.

Please continue to pray for us, we so appreciate all the prayers.  Specific prayers:  that all our paperwork and interpol clearance comes in quickly so that a court date can be assigned very soon,  that Dariya is prepared to meet us and our meeting goes well.



Dariya's cityscape coming in across the river bridge




Beach and swim area on the river






Jason working hard at our kitchen table



One of the bedrooms