Oh, the Boredom

May 25

We have been holed up in this little closet of a hotel room for two days now. It has been raining the whole weekend. We did manage to get out for two brief excursions. There is a pedestrian street a few blocks from our hotel. It is a very nice bricked street with lots of shops. It kind of reminds me of some of the streets in Galway only no one looks and you or smiles. There is a souvenir store there in the basement of a building which we knew about from Riley's adoption. We probably never would have found it on our own, but it seems to be a little secret that gets passed from one adoptive family to another. We went there yesterday and bought a lacquer box for Colin and cheap matroishkas (nesting dolls) for both the Lee and Stewart kids to play with. Today we went back to the store for a magnet and then walked down to the mall. There is a grocery store on lower level so we loaded up on some snacks and get a bottle of vodka - as a gift for someone. The store was not terribly large but there was an entire aisle dedicated to vodka. We had a little sticky note with the name of a vodka that was recommended by a native, and we wandered up and down trying to read all the labels to find it. 

Other than those two trips out of the hotel, the highlight our day has been eating dinner in the hotel restaurant. I know almost the entire staff by name. Tonight the server didn't even ask what I wanted to drink. She just confirmed my usual "Coke Lite" 

This trip had been passing very quickly up until this weekend. Now I'm bored . . . really, really bored. I've read all my magazines and my book and played the DS until it feels like my eyes will fall out. I'm pretty sure I've set a world record of 383 consecutive rounds on one of the Mario mini games. 

I miss Riley horribly. We have been fortunate to be able to speak with her almost every night. She has been very talkative, telling us about playing with Ethan or helping Memaw feed the horses and dog. Mom told me she and Dad bought her a bike helmet yesterday, and she was so thrilled with it, she insisted on wearing it the entire day. I can just picture her sitting down for lunch with the bright red plastic helmet still on her head. 

Tomorrow is out final day of court. I am relieved that this leg of our journey is almost over. I am sad to think that going home to see my daughter means leaving my son behind in Russia, but the end is in sight. I know I will be back in a couple of weeks to bring him home.