The Plan

ohmigosh!ohmigosh!ohmigosh!

We leave today!
Here is the plan for trip the first. (ps, feeling fine today.  We both slept until about 5:30, when we both were tossing and turning and kidding ourselves that we could fall back asleep.  The I screamed us both awake when I dreamt that a rocking horse came into our room and put it's face on the bed right beside mine.  what the?):

We fly to Toronto, small layover there.  Fly overnight to Istanbul, layover there, then fly to UFA.

We land the morning of the 13th.  Our CHOC rep and driver meets us at 9.  We go over our appointments, ask all questions about procedure, then head to the Ministry of Education in Ufa for our first government appointment.  At this meeting we get to see all the information they have on Dania, fill out lots of paperwork, and ask any questions we have.  I also believe this is the point we schedule the court date, after signing our commitment papers.  Then we drive to Sterlitamak, where the orphanage is, and meet our host family (the husband of which is our driver) and Dania!

The 14th is when we have the Canadian designated medical practitioner check out Dania.  This gives us more information to bring home for our government.  Then spend the rest of the day with her.

The 15th is a whole day at the orphanage.  Well, we always go "home" for our own meals, which is within walking distance of the orphanage, apparently, but the rest of the time is with her.

The 16th we spend most of the day with Dania.  We must travel back to Ufa to fly to Moscow at 20:00.  We travel from the airport to our apartment for a late check in (this is a one hour time difference already)!  This apartment has free wifi, so if we are not able to upload photos and updates before this date we will definitely do it this night!

The 17th is our appointments at the clinic.  We can walk from our apartment, (and thanks to google maps I was able to print directions in Russian and English!), and the appointment time will probably be first thing - we find out for sure with our initial meeting with the CHOC rep in Ufa.  Then, the rest of the eve is ours.  We are within a 5 minute walk from the pedestrian area with all the fun restaurants and bars so we will probably celebrate our "doneness" for this trip.  At this point there is literally NOTHING we can do to change anything until we say our word to the judge.  Then we will get some sleep. 

The 18th is our bonus day!  We stay the extra day and save about 1500 on flights!  We get to be tourists!  We will go see the Red Square, possible go inside the Kremlin, and all other big sights in this area (all within 15 minute walk from our apartment!).  Then we hit the hay and ready for travel home.

The 19th, we fly out at 10:00.  We will, most likely, have to be up and leave before 0600 from the apartment so we will be turning in early the night before.  This is it though!  We will be leaving Moscow for Warsaw at 10, Warsaw to Toronto after a 6ish hour layover, then first thing in the morning on the 20th we fly Toronto to Halifax.  It will really be almost the 22nd for us though!  Yeah welcomed jet lag!

I will keep doing little posts from the airports when the wifi kicks in.  It will be a grand adventure for sure!
xoxo
j