Scott and I both woke up in the middle of the night, partly from excitement and the rest from being in a completely new time zone. Today would be our big appointment with the Minister of Education. She would be interviewing us and deciding if we were capable of parenting a Russian orphan. To calm our nerves and get out of the hotel before our 4:00pm appointment, we decided to find some food. I think I had already written about the fact that not one single soul speaks English here. We've traveled many places and always felt like we could communicate with people...not here. They looked at us as if we were from another planet. Not many Americans come to Krasnodar I guess?? It was 87 degrees when we started our little walk into the city for a bite to eat. Remember I told you about the traffic...well, try crossing the road when the cars are driving like crazy. It took us a few tries before we found a "safe" place to get across the road and we were on our way.
After walking for about 3 miles, we decided that we were too hot and too tired to go much further. We also found a modern grocery store and decided to go for it. I'm always very cautious when entering a new place. I like to stand back and watch how it all works before I go in head first. Our first attempt left us confused because a guard told us that we couldn't go in the store. This was all done with hand motions and we quickly walked away. We couldn't quite figure out why we weren't allowed in the store??
We walked another block away and decided to go back in for another try. There must have been something we were doing wrong. After another observation, we found that we weren't allowed to bring a backpack into the store. Aha! We watched people use little lockers to store their bags and in they went. We tried again and this time found success!! I looked back at the guard and he had a little smirk on his face. I'm sure that we entertained a few locals during our stay there.
Here's a photo of what we bought...
It's all VERY nutritious!
We had a blast looking at all of the new and different items in the grocery store. Now it was time to walk back and enjoy our feast. We were starving at this point and couldn't wait to have our cheese and crackers. The weight of the food and drinks made for a long walk back to the hotel. By this time of day, it was now 95 degrees and we didn't bring any shorts.
At 3:00, Valentina called and told us she would be at our hotel shortly to prepare us for the interview. She would have to do a few "mock" interview questions with us and make us feel at ease with the process.
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