Have Visas!

Hi All,

This has been a long day, but the net result is good! We have Visas and can now come home. I am trying to get our Wednesday tickets changed to Tuesday and if the change fees aren't too high, we'll come home tomorrow. If they are exorbitant, we will come home on Wednesday.

Our day started with a 6:45 wake-up call and then Oleg picked us up around 7:30. First stop was the US Embassy where we submitted our documents and completed the Immigration Visa request forms. That took about an hour and when we submitted them, the assistant said our Visas would be ready tomorrow at 2PM. I asked if there was any possibility of having them done today. She said she wasn't sure if we could get everything done, but they'd try. So, she said come back at 2PM.

From the embassy we went to the medical clinic where we waited for about an hour before our doctor arrived and was able to see us. The exams went fine and by about 12:30 we were finished there with our medical docs and headed back to the embassy. However, we had about an hour to kill and we had not eaten since a light breakfast at around 7am. So, we stopped and got a bite with our translator Nadia.

Then at 2PM we were back at the embassy where we met 2 other families waiting to get their newly adopted kids' Visas. One family was from Indiana and the other from Texas. We were happy when we were called up by the consolate representative who said they would probably be able to get the Visas today, but it would take another hour. In that hour we chatted with the other families and they received their Visas. Then we received ours too (!) at around 3PM.

So, we are officially done and will be heading home soon. We are awaiting confirmation of seat availability for flights tomorrow (Tuesday) instead of Wednesday. We're hoping to travel tomorrow and be home a day early.

I'll do a final update once we have seats confirmed.

Thanks!

Bruce