The Russia Trip- Part 6

6/8/10-6/12/10: We were lucky enough to have Joshua sleep all night the first night and pretty much every night since. After we got him we had to spend a few more nights in the region while the powers that be processed his adoption certificate, birth certificate, and passport. Erich had to make two trips to the city we had court in to finish things up so our first full day together was spent with me taking care of the baby in the hotel while Erich made the 3 hour drive out, took care of business and then rode 3 hours back. He had to repeat the process two days later to pick up Joshua's passport so it definitely stretched my imagination a few times to try and entertain Joshua.

On one of our in between days the translator took a nice walk to the park with us. We were expecting a park with benches, maybe some playground equipment but we actually went to the amusement park which had all the rides we would expect to see at the county fair at home plus all the popcorn, cotton candy, and ice cream you could want. She told us that in her country the rides are permanent in big cities and are open all summer. Unfortunately Joshua was too small for most rides but we did get to ride the ferris wheel which was an adventure in itself- the ride never stops moving and you have to hop on and off when a free bucket comes by. The view was worth it though...







We were also able to walk around and view some of the city's fountains which are for swimming, again, too bad Joshua wasn't older at the time...





Even though we were not with any other families the last few days in region seemed to go by quickly and before we knew it the time had come to fly back to Moscow. The flight was an early morning flight so we had to be up at about 4:30 AM to get packed and off to the airport. The up side to that was that Joshua was pretty sleepy and did sleep for part of the flight home. He was definitely bored by our treats and toys by the time the plane landed and ready for lunch and a nap so we were glad to get on solid ground again when the plane landed. We thought we'd be going straight to the apartment we'd rented for our stay in Moscow but our driver had other ideas. He wanted to get Joshua's picture for his visa application done and out of the way so we drove around town looking for a photographer open on a holiday. It took awhile. By the time we got there Joshua had fallen asleep and was not too happy to have his photo taken...



We eventually made it to our new temporary home and got settled in. It was a nice one bedroom place on New Arbat Street which had access to plenty of shops and entertainment if we were so inclined but with a baby most of our outings were to the grocery store with an occasional stop at the toy store. It probably didn't help that the weather during our stay was either so hot and humid you could cut it with a knife or cold and raining. Oh well, we'd been to Moscow before so we weren't too disappointed by the lack of sightseeing this trip. I'll leave you with some shots of the apartment and some looks out our windows. We were on the 22nd floor so we had a great view!