Day 2 Video

Embassy Day-

We drove to the orphanage to pick up the kids, and then headed to the Embassy. I have to say even though we were warned about it, it was so weird to just hold her in the car with no carseat...We were given a bottle, as she hadn't finished her breakfast, and so I fed her her first bottle from mommy in the range rover on the way to the embassy. We then hit a traffic jam on the way....they were laying a pipe acrossed the road, and since there were no flaggers, it turned into a crazy mess of cars all at weird angles trying to get past. One bus was completely blocked in that we passed, but for the most part again we were amazed at how it just sort of all worked and came together. I got a little stressed as our appointment time drew near and we weren't there yet, but it didn't end up being a big deal. We went through several security checkpoints, where we had to surrender our camera, and a tense moment when they found a big cylindrical metal/wood object in Brent's bag.....the look the guard gave me said, he suspected it was something really bad, but in fact it was our hotel key, and they put it on a huge keyring so you don't loose it.....

We then went to a small room where there were about 50 people waiting, hoping to receive VISA's to come to the US, and after about 20 minutes were called upstairs for our interview. It lasted a maybe 3 minutes and was exactly what we were told to expect. The lady said, "no takebacks, this is final", which struck us as odd...... Of course this is final....But there was a huge moment of relief as we walked down the stairs, and felt like she was "officially" ours now.

We then took her back to our room to just hang out. It was nice to be able to dress her up, change her diaper, feed her, and just relax with her. We then took her back to the orphanage and had lunch, and went to the Hilton to email and exchange some money and did some shopping. We were taken to a store that had a lot of variety, and Wendi was wonderful at helping us barter and figure out the exchange rates. I had a hard time doing the conversions in my head, and didn't end up getting much. We later went back to the orphanage and checked out the shopping at Toukoul, and found the prices better, and felt more relaxed and good that we were helping the orphanage out....that is where I bought most of my souveniers.... I bought a lot of things to give to Meaza as she gets older....dolls, aprons, traditional dresses, a table cloth, a coffee ceremony set, etc.

We again tried to stay awake that night, and ended up just hanging out in the lobby with the Theis and the Chambers, and did manage to stay awake until at least 8:30 or 9....I still woke up at 12:30 thinking it was morning, but slept a bit more that night...