We are in Bulgaria. I can't believe we will meet Gracie tomorrow! The theme of the trip is flexibility...Since we planned to embrace every aspect of the trip as just another part of the adventure, we are smiling and creating an awesome story.
The flights went great and we had no problem at all with London Heathrow or our connections. In fact we had just enough time to go through security, stop at the restroom and board the bus to the plane to Sofia. Nearly went straight from one plane to the next. We met a great lady on the flight from London to Sofia who helped us with some of our limited language attempts, too. She had been a midwife in Bulgaria and had worked with several of the orphanages. She cried when she found out that we were adopting and just kept telling us how wonderful that it was.
When we landed, we waited and waited for our luggage...It is hard to miss purple bags with bright pink TSA locks. But there was another family from the US who had the exact same luggage. Well eventually, we were the only two families waiting at the luggage carousel. Both of us are missing a purple checked bag. It was mine, wouldn't you know.
We prepared for this, so I had two shirts and two pairs of pants in Mark's bag. I don't really think anyone will care that I have on brown shoes with my black pants...I really would have liked to have had my curling iron, but Mark and I walked around for a couple of hours and pointed, smiled and grunted at a few Bulgarian shop owners until we bought some pink plastic rollers to use with a hair dryer. I think mom used to put those pink rollers in my hair when I was 5...LOL
Well, our driver took us to the "supermarket," I use that word loosely, since the whole store was about the size of our garage so we could buy food. Well we got some kind of cheese with a sheep on the label (nasty), some fruit, breakfast cereal and lots of bottled water. Of course, as soon as we got to the apartment, I brushed my teeth with the sink water. Oops! I hope I don't need that antibiotic tomorrow, but at least it was in Mark's bag.
The apartment is amazing. We have two bedrooms, one with working air-conditioning and twin beds. The air in the one with the queen bed and the naked lady artwork isn't working. I wouldn't let Mark go in there anyway... We have a kitchen, dining area, living area and bath with a jetted tub on the 6th (top) floor of an apartment building. Oh, and by the way, today is our 12th wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary, Mark!
You'll see from the photos that the outside and corridors of this building are a complete contrast to the inside. We saw this as we were driving through Sofia, too. Lots of beautiful mountains and new construction next to run down apartment buildings and store fronts. We found a park that we think was built during the communist era with crumbling walkways and statues and a gorgeous fountain. We also bought two snacks at a little shop, and for anyone who has seen our precious video of Gracie, she ate these same pretzels and fed the cheese curls to the birds. We are snacking on these right now!
Tomorrow, Petko will pick us up at 9:00 a.m. to take us to the orphanage. He expects we will stay until about 11:30, leave while the children nap, and return around 3:30 for a couple more hours. He said we will probably do this Monday through Friday! We get lots of time with our little girl. Now, we need sleep. More tomorrow.
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