3-07-08 AND 3-08-08 3-07-08 Ok, these beds suck! We doubled our comforters and lay on top of them to TRY to make it more cushion but my back is killing me from it. Anyway............ I've found Emma! :) Went to the orphanage ....NOT on my birthday as anticipated. I Saw 4 babies and Emma really was the only one I was "attracted" to. She's 10 months old has brown hair that looks like a firecracker went off on her head! LOL Brown eyes (of Asian feature) and very white skin (porcelain like). She's very attentive and ticklish!! :) She can pull herself up to a standing position but doesnt crawl yet. She can roll over and sit herself up too. She's very smart and very intuitive. She mimics you and is very alert. We went back for our afternoon visit and spent the 2 hrs only with her. Yet the food has been ok what we have had. The food we bought in the store is "different" the milk tastes like cream, only non spreadable no salt butter, the bread isn’t like we know it (in wonder bread fashion) but instead looks like "fresh" bread from a bakery and tastes like its a month old. HAVE to dip it in tea or coffee for it to be soft enough to bite. 3-08-08 Today was “Women’s Day” a holiday, we couldn’t go to orphanage so we’ll go tomorrow, where we normally wouldn’t go on a Sun. This holiday is equivalent to Mother’s Day yet is for all women. They’re all walking around with flowers. Got report from Dr. Farber she thinks everything seems to be very good from the reports and pics/video too... just a few things I need to double check on tomorrow. Ventured out to walk to “the mall”. It got colder as we started walking and our white sneakers quickly got ruined. The people are SO rude; everything is dirty, muddy, & cold. NO ONE speaks English and they don't help you but laugh at you. We totally stick out. All the women are in black tight gaudy clothes, lace, belly shirts, stiletto heel boots, leather and/or fur coats. It’s horrendous. Most look like hookers/street walkers. Every where we went people were looking us up and down and laughing. Talk about rude!! You’d think we were walking down the street naked! It was soooooooo uncomfortable. There's NOTHING to do here. Obviously the movies are in Russian. We went to the "baby store" thinking it would be like babies r us and it was smaller than a 7-11! The stores are little tiny things with nothing worth looking at. Mostly perfumes, cell phones and purses (THEY'RE huge here). There was a “trade center” that was a glorified indoor flea market with all vendors set up and no ‘stores’. Cant buy boots, exchanging money-cant find bank, more laughing. After walking around all day, my back killing me. I had to get out of there but we had no ride home and were hungry. We can’t figure out what anything is when we try to eat something out but we found a store that said “Inter food” so we figured “ah that’s gotta be somewhere to eat”. The food was pretty good and luckily the girl on line behind us spoke English and helped us out. She also explained to the lady behind the counter that we need to use the phone when we leave. I had a beef stew and mom had chicken with peas and tomatoes in a sauce. We were asked if we wanted a salad with the salad bar. We said yes then went over to find there was again no lettuce at this “salad bar”. They ask you what you want and when I pointed at ONE item they spooned out a portion, weighed it, and handed it to me. Guess you can’t have cucumbers AND carrots. When we were done the nice lady that worked there called Olga for us. We have to call our interpreter every time we want to go anywhere b/c we don’t have a phone, cant speak the language, and don’t know the name of our apartment. So we call her, she calls the taxi/driver and it’s just so inconvenient. We were told to wait outside across the street from a certain store. We thought we saw our taxi b/c he was motioning to us. We got in and realized he wasn’t sent FOR us when he didn’t know who Olga was so we got out. We crossed the street in front of the store, we thought we were supposed to be in front of, and then waited so long, had to go in the store and call again. Olga said he’d be there in 5 min in a black Mercedes. About 7 min later a man came up to us and said “Olga sent me” and we got in his red Nissan. (THIS is what I’m talking about) We're SO miserable here I just want to come home. Unfortunately, we're stuck here and can’t believe we still have to come back. Wish we could just get her out of here now. We've now decided to only leave the apartment to go to the orphanage. It’s just such a shame that the country and our surroundings are really seriously affecting this experience. I only look forward to going to the orphanage again tomorrow. We couldn’t get back in the apartment fast enough. Mom had an urge to put on her John Denver cd and the first song was “It’s good to be back home again” and she had a minor emotional breakdown. We seem to take turns doing this. I just look at the pics I have taken of Emma and think, ok it'll be worth it but the thought of having to be here this much longer AND come back is so emotionally unappealing it makes me cry to even think about it.