Monday, February 23, 2009

In the Home Stretch

Yesterday morning Zhou went to the U.S. Embassy to get the visas for all of the babies in our group; apparently all of the paperwork was in order, because there were no problems. In the afternoon we visited the Hualin Temple in Guangzhou, followed by a trip to the jade market.

We finished the day with dinner at a German restaurant with our new friends John and Liesl Ross. The place has only been open for a copule of weeks, and frankly it showed. We met the owner, with whom I exchanged a few words in German. He's from Berlin, but moved here and married a very attractive Chinese woman who looks to be about half his age. But he spent the evening sitting at a nearby table downing beer after beer while things in the restaurant seemed to be falling apart. He spoke halfway decent English, but he made no effort to interpret when customers (most of whom were Americans) were having trouble communicating with the wait staff. The staff didn't seem to know the German names of any of the dishes, so that when I asked for sauerbraten our server brought me a spoon.

This morning we're going to take care of our last-minute shopping needs. Then at 3:00 this afternoon we're attending a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy. I'm not sure what this is all about; my guess is that it has something to do with the babies' citizenship, but that citizenship won't become final until we get to the United States. Anyway, we can't bring any cameras into the embassy, so the big moment won't be recorded for posterity.

Stanzi has discovered television, and at the moment is happily engrossed in some program specifically for babies on an English (British)-language channel. All in all, Stanzi's been a lot easier than expected. She can't stand baths, and puts up a fight every evening at bedtime, but aside from that she's pretty easygoing. She was an angel on the flight from Nanchang to Guangzhou, which bodes well for the trip home (granted that was a one-hour flight, as opposed to the 16 hours or so we'll be flying tomorrow). Not much seems to frighten her, and she's extremely curious about everything, so maybe her introduction to the dogs in a few days will go smoothly. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Sorry for the lack of audio-visuals, but for some reason I've been having trouble uploading vidoes over the past 24 hours. And I can't load any new photos to my computer until I borrow a cable again.

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