Wow, we are back in the Good ol’ U.S. of A! Other than being wide awake at 3:00 a.m. every morning, we’re recovering well and have jumped back into our busy lives in Austin. We miss our little girl though, all the time.
On Friday, we were told that Vera had gotten an upset stomach the day before after our trip to KFC and the Dolphin show.
They didn’t want us to feed her or upset her “system” which was precariously balanced on a specific diet at the orphanage. So, what did we do? We found bowling! There was this very nice 8-lane bowling alley that Masha took us to. They didn’t have bumpers, so all the scores were a little lower than normal. But a good time was had by all. Scott did recieve a minor injury when he whacked his leg with the ball, and after we all got up off of the floor, we suggested that he move his leg out of the way when he bowls 
We had a short day with Vera on Friday. That afternoon we went shopping for gifts at a shop named Red October that was just wonderful. The staff was really helpful. I had a nice conversation with the saleslady who asked where I was from. Upon learning that I was from Texas, she asked me if I had a farm and horses and lots of cattle.
After that we did a “speed tour” of the amazing Hermitage. We had exactly one hour to run through this giant palace at a full trot. It reminded me of some of the scenes in the Chevy Chase “Vacation” movies
We were to meet Sharon’s friend Kate under the statue of the angel in front of the Hermitage at 5:30. But when we stepped out of the building at 5:32, we discovered that we could no longer get to the statue, as there were thousands of Russian sailors and soldiers drilling for the upcoming Victory Day (May 1) parade, and the statue was right in the middle of them.
In order to avoid one of those Chevy Chase moments, we decided to look for Kate on the fringes of the crowd. Kate found us first. She said that she was looking for some American-looking parents with two boys. We suspect it was pretty easy for her.
We went to a lovely Italian restaurant (or Pectopah in Russian) and had a really nice visit with Kate. Kate is also in the process of adoption. She is a teacher there with an Embassy school.
Then we did something completely foreign to all of us: we rode the subway back to the hotel. It was quite an experience, and we all agreed that as a transportation system, it really worked out well.
On Saturday, we slept in, rode the subway in the other direction, went shopping, came back, and met Natasha, our interpretor, Roman, our driver, and Vera, our daughter to be, in the hotel lobby. We decided that we needed to buy our little girl an outfit of her own. (In the orphanage, clothing is sort of community owned.) We wanted to give her something that she could call hers, even if only for a little while. We travelled to three or four shops before we located a shop that had something warm enough for late April. Let me tell you though, clothes in Russia are not cheap. In fact, they aren’t even affordable. I expect that we paid nearly double the American price. It seemed that this was true of many items in the stores. Lot of things were reasonable, but I don’t recall seeing any items that were a bargain, and many things were quite expensive.
Vera just loved her new clothes. The outfit included these really cool blue jeans, shirt, and a sweater. The sweather had a giant heart on it, and she looked just precious in her new outfit.
We had dinner (more Italian food) and then went to the circus.
The circus was a lot of fun, and was styled similarly to the Cirque du Soleil. Vera saw that many of the children had little flashing lights, and she just had to have one. So she dragged Papa down to the vendors and bought two little flashing lights that she could play with. They made her happy.
In the middle of the circus performance, Vera asked Sharon to take her to the bathroom. When they got there, and Vera saw that the facilities were less than pristine, she held her nose and ran off. Sharon, looks left, looks right, and thinks “I’ve just lost my little Russian child. I’m going to rot in a Russian prison somewhere!” Vera had run right back to our seats, but Sharon lost several minutes looking for her before she came back to see if Vera had returned. There was a great sigh of relief when Sharon saw that all was well.
That night (Saturday) Vera came to stay with us in our hotel. She was bouncing off the walls, she was so excited. Sometime after midnight, she went to sleep. Sometime around 5:00 a.m. she woke up.
By 6:00 she woke all of us up. We weren’t going anywhere until 1:00, and it seemed that 1:00 would never come…but finally, it did. Vera’s Grandmother and Masha met us in the lobby, and then we all went to eat – surprise! – Italian food at Il Patio.
We then travelled by Metro to the Philharmonic Hall where we were to see an organ and trumpet concert. The kids, of course, fell asleep along the back walls
The trumpet performance was very good, but we got a lot of funny and amused looks from the crowd because of our three sleeping children. A photographer even came by to take pictures; apparently, children sleeping in public is an unusual sight there. Our transalator was a bit embarassed, and we all agreed to exit at intermission.
After the concert, we took Vera back to the orphanage. We had to say goodbye there and it was tough. It was when I was walking out these big metal, Soviet-style doors that I almost lost it.
We got back to the hotel around 6:30, finished packing, and got ready for a 3:00 a.m. wakeup so that we could make our 6:15 flight to Frankfurt.
Next time, I will not put my pocketknife in the pocket of my rucksack. They frown on that in Russian airports. 
Everything was going well. On the plane, they served us a breakfast of eggs and juice. I was quite happy to be going home — I missed being home. I leaned back in my seat to attempt another hour of blissful sleep. After a few minutes though, I broke out in a cold sweat. “Oh no you don’t!”, I said to my stomach. “Oh here I come!”, said breakfast.
I threw up three times. The last time was at the gate in Frankfurt, and they said I would have to convince the captain to let me board the plane. I barely squeaked by, but had no more trouble after that.
Now, here we are, back to our “normal” lives, and missing our little girl very much.
