We are back in Russia!!!

After another long journey we are back in St. Petersburg, Russia!

We left Pittsburgh Sunday morning and first flew to Philadelphia. During our long 7 hour layover, a friend of Laurie's from college, Fran, picked us up at the airport and we spent the afternoon at her house. It was wonderful to visit with Fran and her son, Michael. We then flew from Philly to Zurich, Switzerland. We were a bit rushed in that airport as we arrived less than an hour before our flight to St. Petersburg took off. Everything turned out fine though and we made all of our flights. This trip didn't seem as bad as our last trip over here. We were able to sleep a little bit more, so that made the time go faster.

When we arrived in St. Petersburg, our driver was there to meet us. We didn't know who to expect and instead of Sasha (from our first trip), there was a man named Alec. Much to our delight, he speaks English! It's not perfect English, but we are able to communicate with him so much easier than we were with Sasha. He asked John if he likes hockey (silly question) and he knew about the Pittsburgh Penguins! As we approached our apartment, we were also delighted by the fact that it is about 1 block away from a Mama Roma (the Italian restaurant we dined at almost every night during our first visit). There is also a supermarket near by that we are going to visit today before dinner so we know how difficult our grocery shopping will be for the next 4 weeks. The apartment is very much like the pictures we saw and Laurie can't wait to try the washer/dryer machine :) The weather is much more comfortable this trip (so far, it's only been a couple of hours though). There are still a couple patches of snow but we can actually walk on the sidewalks (they are no longer covered with thick ice) and the river water is flowing. We have the window open in the apartment as it quite warm on the 3rd floor.

During our drive to the apartment, Alec received a call from Natasha. She said that we will be visiting the orphanage at 4:00 tomorrow with Galina. After our visit, Natasha will meet us to discuss court for Wednesday - we are assuming everything is still going on as planned (which will be a huge relief)! We are so very excited for our visit tomorrow and can't believe it's been 2 months since we've seen him!!