What Day Is It?
Monday, June 26th (We think!)
First we would like to appologize to our family and friends for not posting earlier. We have had a little more problems than we thought getting on line. We are in an internet cafe right now. (Not exactly what you call a cafe, though) The cafe is a long narrow room, no air conditioning, and about 16 computer stations. Of course, Bobby has still been trying to get a cup of coffee or something, but all we have gotten is funny looks(they do not serve anything at all except internet service. Our apartment is suppose to have high speed internet connection, but we have yet to get it connected--I can assure you we are trying.
Enough of the bad...All in all we have had a very good trip so far. Rylee cried a lot of the way to the airport, but as soon as we got there she looked at us and said, "I'm excited, now!" Since then she has been an angel, and there has been very, very little complaining. We left Atlanta at around 4:30pm. Rylee kept asking, "When are we going to take off?" Right when we started to take off, I looked over and she was asleep. I guess the emotions of the day took their toll.
We slept a little on the plane. Got served lots of food and drinks, and hot herbed towels! Lufthansa is a great airline! We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany at 7:15am. We were the last off of the plane due to our magnitude of carry-on luggage. When we exited the plane we found out we had to climb 3 flights of stairs will all of this carry-on luggage. Needless to say, we have learned our lesson about carry-on luggage. We took a lot, because we heard that many times your luggage is 2-3 days behind you, and we did not want to be without! (Luckily, all of our luggage did make it!)
Once in the airport, we had to exit this one area and had to wait in a lounge for our next flight--which was not until 1:20pm. We quickly found chairs where we could lay down and we all fell asleep. Bobby attempted to get on-line there, but no luck. About 2 hours before our flight we went to our boarding gate and waited and waited. All of a sudden we look around and there is no one around us and it is 20 minutes until lift-off---We started panicking and finally found someone that spoke English that advised us that our flight gate had changed. Luckily, it was only a short walk to the next gate, but this put us boarding last and trying to find spots for all of our tons of carry-on---not fun!!! We were a little late on take-off, and everyone was wondering why....THEN...the Captain came on the intercom and advised everyone that due to a 1 minute carry-on luggage delay while boarding we missed our take-off "spot", and it would be anywhere from 10-30 minutes to get another "spot". OOOPPPS! Yes, we caused this delay...leave it to the Woodard's. Other than that it was a very smooth and enjoyable flight to Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Have I mentioned how good Rylee has been?)
We arrived in Almaty around 12:15am, Sunday(Due to the Woodard carry-on luggage delay!!) :-) Customs was surprisingly easy, and as soon as we walked out of customs we saw Aeda (our translator/coordinator in Almaty) holding a sign that read "WOODARD." She had this very surprised look on her face when she saw Rylee and all of our luggage. She had booked flights for Bobby and I, but no one had advised her that Rylee was coming with us. She tried to get a ticket while we were there, but the flight was booked. We started to get a little worried, but she advised her that her father was the Vice-President of the airport, and he should be able to work it out! She quickly realized that we were not going to get all of our luggage in 1 vehicle, so she hired a cab and off we went.....and I mean quickly!!! Rylee did not say a word the entire ride to the hotel!! When asked why she did not talk, she responded "Aeda was driving too fast, and I was scared we were going to wreck!" That is just the way everyone drives around here.
We got to our hotel, in Almaty, and it was clean, nice, and had a friendly English speaking staff. The rooms were a little on the small side, but it definately exceeded our expectations. It was located right across the street from the US Embassy and down the street from the RAM store (a big mall with an ice skating rink.) The hotel did not have internet connection, or we would have posted then. I got the bright idea of being the first one in the shower. At first, I thought we did not have hot water, but after running the water for about 30 minutes it turned kind of warm. I was not going to complain!!! After all getting cleaned up and raiding our snacks, we watched a movie, because we were so wired and mixed up on our times. After our movie, we quickly fell asleep, and slept until 11am Almaty time. Aeda picked us up for lunch and we went to the RAM store, where we had pizza. We were a little worried about Rylee, because it was different from our pizza, but she did not say a word. She picked off the things on it she did not like and gobbled it down. She followed it with an ice cream, yes, a Baskin Robbins ice cream. With Baskin Robbins, pizza, and ice skating she quickly decided she liked Almaty.
After that, it was time to go to the airport. Yes, in two different vehicles--due to the luggage. We get to the airport and after being shuffled here and there and sitting and then being shuffled here and there...somehow Aeda and her father got Rylee a plane ticket. At one point they had found someone who would sell their ticket for full price + $85. A child's ticket is normally 50% of regular fare, so this would have been about triple the cost we should be paying. So, we said we would wait it out and see if a seat opened up....and it did!!! We got to our plane and it was a rather small plane that held 50 people. Rylee was a little worried when we took off, but it was a very smooth flight. It took about 2 1/2 hours, and then we arrived in Pavlodar. This is a very small, simple airport with the very basics. We exited the plane and we were greeted by Lena, our translator, and 2 drivers (because, yes, she had heard we had a lot of luggage) I thought I did well--we only had 4 pieces of check-in--I think we pushed the limit on the carry-on.
We had about a 20 minute ride to the city of Pavlodar and were taken right to our apartment. It is on the 5th floor, and yes we had to carry all of the luggage up five flights of stairs...Whew!!! We were greeted by the apartment building owner, and were very surprized at how modernized the apartment is. It is very nice and we will be very comfortable here for the next couple of weeks. It has a very large living room area, a small kitchen, a nice bathroom with a garden tub, and 1 bedroom with a king-size bed. If we can just get the internet going we will have absolutely no complaints. We tried to call our family, but did not know what to dial to call the US, because we thought we would be using the internet to communicate.
When we got settled in we decided we were hungry and were all fighting over 1 last bottle of water, because it was too late to go to the store when we arrived. We rationed, found another bottle of water in the refridgerator that they had left for us and we decided to make instant chicken noodle soup that we had brought. It is amazing what taste good when you are hungry and desperate. We finally got to bed and were supposed to be ready at 9am to meet with our attorney, then try to get our 2 meetings with the Department of Education. We waited and waited, and finally got a call that Lena and our driver would be there in 5-8 minutes. We went to meet with Svetlana, our attorney, and all went well. We found out that we would not be having our meeting with the Department today, but we will have both meetings tomorrow, starting at 9am, and then, hopefully, be able to visit the babyhouse tomorrow.
After our meeting with Svetlana, Lena showed us around. We are about 3 blocks from a beach. We have numerous shops around us. We went on our first grocery shopping excursion. We had some luck and have found several things we think Rylee will eat!! We will fill you in more later...
Well, we will post again as soon as we can, and we will figure out a way to post pictures. Hopefully, tomorrow! Miss and love you all! Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, as tomorrow is going to be a very important day for us!!
First we would like to appologize to our family and friends for not posting earlier. We have had a little more problems than we thought getting on line. We are in an internet cafe right now. (Not exactly what you call a cafe, though) The cafe is a long narrow room, no air conditioning, and about 16 computer stations. Of course, Bobby has still been trying to get a cup of coffee or something, but all we have gotten is funny looks(they do not serve anything at all except internet service. Our apartment is suppose to have high speed internet connection, but we have yet to get it connected--I can assure you we are trying.
Enough of the bad...All in all we have had a very good trip so far. Rylee cried a lot of the way to the airport, but as soon as we got there she looked at us and said, "I'm excited, now!" Since then she has been an angel, and there has been very, very little complaining. We left Atlanta at around 4:30pm. Rylee kept asking, "When are we going to take off?" Right when we started to take off, I looked over and she was asleep. I guess the emotions of the day took their toll.
We slept a little on the plane. Got served lots of food and drinks, and hot herbed towels! Lufthansa is a great airline! We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany at 7:15am. We were the last off of the plane due to our magnitude of carry-on luggage. When we exited the plane we found out we had to climb 3 flights of stairs will all of this carry-on luggage. Needless to say, we have learned our lesson about carry-on luggage. We took a lot, because we heard that many times your luggage is 2-3 days behind you, and we did not want to be without! (Luckily, all of our luggage did make it!)
Once in the airport, we had to exit this one area and had to wait in a lounge for our next flight--which was not until 1:20pm. We quickly found chairs where we could lay down and we all fell asleep. Bobby attempted to get on-line there, but no luck. About 2 hours before our flight we went to our boarding gate and waited and waited. All of a sudden we look around and there is no one around us and it is 20 minutes until lift-off---We started panicking and finally found someone that spoke English that advised us that our flight gate had changed. Luckily, it was only a short walk to the next gate, but this put us boarding last and trying to find spots for all of our tons of carry-on---not fun!!! We were a little late on take-off, and everyone was wondering why....THEN...the Captain came on the intercom and advised everyone that due to a 1 minute carry-on luggage delay while boarding we missed our take-off "spot", and it would be anywhere from 10-30 minutes to get another "spot". OOOPPPS! Yes, we caused this delay...leave it to the Woodard's. Other than that it was a very smooth and enjoyable flight to Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Have I mentioned how good Rylee has been?)
We arrived in Almaty around 12:15am, Sunday(Due to the Woodard carry-on luggage delay!!) :-) Customs was surprisingly easy, and as soon as we walked out of customs we saw Aeda (our translator/coordinator in Almaty) holding a sign that read "WOODARD." She had this very surprised look on her face when she saw Rylee and all of our luggage. She had booked flights for Bobby and I, but no one had advised her that Rylee was coming with us. She tried to get a ticket while we were there, but the flight was booked. We started to get a little worried, but she advised her that her father was the Vice-President of the airport, and he should be able to work it out! She quickly realized that we were not going to get all of our luggage in 1 vehicle, so she hired a cab and off we went.....and I mean quickly!!! Rylee did not say a word the entire ride to the hotel!! When asked why she did not talk, she responded "Aeda was driving too fast, and I was scared we were going to wreck!" That is just the way everyone drives around here.
We got to our hotel, in Almaty, and it was clean, nice, and had a friendly English speaking staff. The rooms were a little on the small side, but it definately exceeded our expectations. It was located right across the street from the US Embassy and down the street from the RAM store (a big mall with an ice skating rink.) The hotel did not have internet connection, or we would have posted then. I got the bright idea of being the first one in the shower. At first, I thought we did not have hot water, but after running the water for about 30 minutes it turned kind of warm. I was not going to complain!!! After all getting cleaned up and raiding our snacks, we watched a movie, because we were so wired and mixed up on our times. After our movie, we quickly fell asleep, and slept until 11am Almaty time. Aeda picked us up for lunch and we went to the RAM store, where we had pizza. We were a little worried about Rylee, because it was different from our pizza, but she did not say a word. She picked off the things on it she did not like and gobbled it down. She followed it with an ice cream, yes, a Baskin Robbins ice cream. With Baskin Robbins, pizza, and ice skating she quickly decided she liked Almaty.
After that, it was time to go to the airport. Yes, in two different vehicles--due to the luggage. We get to the airport and after being shuffled here and there and sitting and then being shuffled here and there...somehow Aeda and her father got Rylee a plane ticket. At one point they had found someone who would sell their ticket for full price + $85. A child's ticket is normally 50% of regular fare, so this would have been about triple the cost we should be paying. So, we said we would wait it out and see if a seat opened up....and it did!!! We got to our plane and it was a rather small plane that held 50 people. Rylee was a little worried when we took off, but it was a very smooth flight. It took about 2 1/2 hours, and then we arrived in Pavlodar. This is a very small, simple airport with the very basics. We exited the plane and we were greeted by Lena, our translator, and 2 drivers (because, yes, she had heard we had a lot of luggage) I thought I did well--we only had 4 pieces of check-in--I think we pushed the limit on the carry-on.
We had about a 20 minute ride to the city of Pavlodar and were taken right to our apartment. It is on the 5th floor, and yes we had to carry all of the luggage up five flights of stairs...Whew!!! We were greeted by the apartment building owner, and were very surprized at how modernized the apartment is. It is very nice and we will be very comfortable here for the next couple of weeks. It has a very large living room area, a small kitchen, a nice bathroom with a garden tub, and 1 bedroom with a king-size bed. If we can just get the internet going we will have absolutely no complaints. We tried to call our family, but did not know what to dial to call the US, because we thought we would be using the internet to communicate.
When we got settled in we decided we were hungry and were all fighting over 1 last bottle of water, because it was too late to go to the store when we arrived. We rationed, found another bottle of water in the refridgerator that they had left for us and we decided to make instant chicken noodle soup that we had brought. It is amazing what taste good when you are hungry and desperate. We finally got to bed and were supposed to be ready at 9am to meet with our attorney, then try to get our 2 meetings with the Department of Education. We waited and waited, and finally got a call that Lena and our driver would be there in 5-8 minutes. We went to meet with Svetlana, our attorney, and all went well. We found out that we would not be having our meeting with the Department today, but we will have both meetings tomorrow, starting at 9am, and then, hopefully, be able to visit the babyhouse tomorrow.
After our meeting with Svetlana, Lena showed us around. We are about 3 blocks from a beach. We have numerous shops around us. We went on our first grocery shopping excursion. We had some luck and have found several things we think Rylee will eat!! We will fill you in more later...
Well, we will post again as soon as we can, and we will figure out a way to post pictures. Hopefully, tomorrow! Miss and love you all! Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, as tomorrow is going to be a very important day for us!!
posted by Woodard's Adoption | 8:38 AM
2 Comments:
Bobby, Kim and Rylee
What an adventure and it has only been a few days! We are excited for your family and look forward to hearing more about your trip! We are keeping you in our thoughts and prayers everyday! I can't wait to see those first pictures of your little man!
Love
Jenni, Steve, Jake and Sarah
Glad you made it there. Look forward to reading more about the trip.
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