it's 4 am somewhere

While Grace and I were very excited for a chance to sleep in...I find myself awake after only 7 hours of sleep.  So I decided I would update you all and then try to get some more shut eye.  I was going to write before I went to bed but I was so tired I just went to sleep :).

Our journey here was pretty good as journey's go, although we did accidently buy 2 very expensive coffees in the Paris airport!  The plane ride from Minneapolis to Paris, while long, was probably the best.  There were little tv screens in front of every seat and a remote in the arm rest.  It took me the whole journey but by the end I had figured out how to play bejeweled on it.  I was also able to watch a few movies.  It really helped the time past.  They served us food as well and it was pretty tasty.

I hurt my neck before we left and that has been my only complaint.  It is pretty tight and tense and I believe that is some of the reason I am not asleep now.  So please pray that goes away.

Grace has been practicing giving me the social cues so that I can help keep her calm about things.  I think I was pretty slow to pick up on them at first, although I was pretty tired.  But the plan is when she begins to stress or freak out internally she tells me that I need to calm down :)  We got to practice that as we wandered around the paris airport trying to get our boarding pass.  You wouldn't think it would be that hard, nor would you think they would let us through security without one, which they did.  I think all of this made Grace think that the employees of the paris airport were in a back room somewhere losing our bags.  BUT they didn't!  When we got off the horribly small plane to Sofia our bags were there...and no one hassled us at all!

Our driver/tour guide Mitko is really nice and fun to talk to.  He drove us to a place to change our money, told us where we can buy water, (turns out there is a reason I haven't been able to find a drinking fountain since we made it to Europe) and he gave us a local cell phone that we will use to contact Grace's adoption lawyer while we are here.  He and Grace had lots to talk about as Mitko has driven other adoptive parents around on their trips to visit kids and also to take them home.

I had been struck in the past by Grace's ability to point out kids on the reece's rainbow website and tell me all about them, about their illnesses, their adoptive parents and their timeline for coming home.  Her inside information comes from the fact that there is quite a community of adoptive parents online and Grace has been very active in it as I believe it brings comfort knowing others who have gone through this same journey.  Some of them even left behind a message for us to find.  The cell phone that was given to us was in a zip lock bag that also had a couple worn pieces of paper.  These papers had notes past on to us by the different people who had used the phone in the past.  Grace read a few aloud to me from parent's whose names she knew.  It felt very comforting to have their prayers and wishes to us passed along with our phone.  I can't wait to continue the tradition and write a little on there to pass along to the next person.

We were SO tired, we opted to have dinner in the resturant in the hotel basement.  It was VERY tasty.  As we sleeply made conversation about Elton John being our back ground music we couldn't help but notice the only other group of people in the resturant were speaking English and sounded american.  We were very excited to find out they are adopting a child as well.  They are actually one step ahead of Grace and are here to take their little girl home.  Their child is not in the same orphanage as Sam but they did bring some formula for Sam's orphanage. That means we will drop off  more than just our 150 POUNDS of formula!!!!  

Well I think I am going to try to stretch my neck, maybe take another hot bath and try to get back to sleep.  It is after 4 am here and we weren't planning on getting up until 10am :)  At 12:30 tomorrow Mitko will pick us up and take us to Pleven where he will drop us off at the hotel there.  He will show us the ropes over there too, where to get money, where to get water and where to eat.  It is great having a guide!!!!  We will also meet another adoptive parent tomorrow, who will share our journey into the Pleven orphanage.  I am excited to observe he and Grace's interaction and ask him questions about his expeirences as an adoptive dad.

P.s. I sorry for all the typos I can't figure out how to spell check on this mac.  And i am not going to wake up Grace to ask!!!