Reece's Rainbow Takes the City: Day 1

Today was my first big day out in the Big City!

Luckily, I was feeling much better since all the craziness of last night. My eyesight was bit fuzzy early on, but it wore off around lunch time finally. I felt kind of nauseous off and on, but I'm pretty much back to normal.

Well. Normal for me anyways. :)

We got up pretty late, or at least I did, around 10.  We had made plans to meet for lunch at T.G.I. Friday's with a couple other Reece's Rainbow families.  It was so awesome to get to meet so many people who until now I have only known through RR and the Facebook groups.

Does this sign look familiar to anyone?

4 awesome families, who will all meet their little ones in the next week! (And I am sitting across from my two roomies, Jennifer and Michael)

Then it was time to take the city!

And by that I mean wander about, and take annoying tourist photos.

We were near Independence Square, some of these I took before lunch I think.

Me and two other very, VERY excited to be here Mama's!

The Square.

Tower thing. I don't know what it's called or if it even has a name, but it is a symbol of the country's independence.

Then I wandered about with Jennifer & Michael and did some shopping. We found this funny restaurant directly across from a real McDonald's. It's like McD's except only chicken.

It got dark very early, but I was able to meet up with my brother in law's girlfriend, Ana.  She was awesome, and it was really neat to walk around the city with someone who knows where they are going and what to see.  There are still a lot of Christmas lights everywhere, since their Christmas was just January 7th.  The city just looks magical at night this way.

Hey look! There's me in front of the lights! My orange bag and white coat sticks out like a sore thumb in a sea of black coats and black hand bags, but...oh, well. If it looks like a tourist and walks like a tourist.....it's probably just me.

 Here is another cool site Ana took me to see, the Friendship Arch. It looks very cool in the dark.

 And there were two statues underneath it. Which looked rather imposing and impressive.

Behing the arch there was a place you could go and overlook the city and the river. It was a beautiful site with all the lights, obviously not captured well by my camera, but you can kind of see how high up we are.

We walked back down and around, past more beautiful lights and some fountains. It was getting pretty cold by this time, even with my gloves, hat and coat

Here are Ana and I in the cold.

I can't even say how much I love this city.

I. Love. This. City.

Of course it is hard not speaking the language, but it is generally clean and full of interesting sites.  The people are beautiful, the food is delicious. I'm just completely in love with all of it.

I mean, how can you NOT love a city with a sculpture of Two Lamposts in Love and Chairs in a Tree?

It's nearly 11p.m. here, so I should get to bed. Tomorrow is a VERY big day, when I will go to the adoption authority in this city and ask for our daughter's file/referral. It is a HUGE step in this process, so please keep me in your thoughts and prayers while I get through this interview process on my own!