Hanoi

We made it to our final city prior to returning for the US. We have only been gone for one week, but it seems like a month!

We awoke in Saigon this morning. The kids all got up earlier than we would have liked them to (5:30 or so) and Julia had a kind of rough night after 3 am. We had our final Lan Lan 2 breakfast (the big hit this morning was the beef stew--complete with potatoes and carrots). After breakfast our family's travel party (the now five of us plus Barbie's parents and sister) and the other adoptive family we are travelling with loaded into three taxis and went to the airport.

Unbeknowst to us, we were flying business class (a 1000 mile flight for $157 per adult), thus we got to enjoy the business class lounge while waiting for our flight. They put out a great free spread full of food, drinks, and snacks. Julia ate yogurt and bread there. If she is willing to put something in her mouth, she will normally eat it. The trick is getting her to try it. We got to have a great, comfortable, short flight to Hanoi. It was really great, but the big, comfortable seats seemed like a waste on such a short flight (1 hour 40 minutes in the air).

At the airport we were greeted by our agency's representative, Mr. Hien. Mr. Hien is a very nice young man and he had arranged a van to take all of our luggage and us to our hotel. It was about an hour ride to the hotel from the airport. Hanoi is definitely different from Saigon. It is cooler this time of year, you can see mountains through the haze, it is much older, and what we drove through seems to be a maze of narrow streets. Seeing a clear view of the sky didn't happen often during the trip.

We are stayng at Hanoi's Center for Women's Development (CWD Hotel). I'm not kidding. It seems like a regular hotel, and it seems pretty nice (the internet speed is worse than the slimy internet cafe in Ben Tre, however). Thomas is sleeping in his auntie's room tonight to make more room for us. Helen and Julia were asleep in the room when I came down to the lobby to use the substandard internet (6000 Vietnamese Dong per hour after the first, free 20 minutes...it took 20 minutes to load this web page to start typing! If I expect to post any pictures soon I'll have to find a better internet connection). The hotel is supposed to have a pool, but we haven't looked too closely for it yet.

Julia is making small steps at being more ok with us each day, it seems. She really prefers Barbie to hold her, and is mostly content when Barbie holds her. She will play with me if I work it really hard. She is becoming more comfortable with the kids, too, it seems. It isn't gong to happen overnight, but maybe we are seeing glimpses that someday she will try and get to know us and let us get to know her. Mornings have been toughest, and it is possible that it will be tough tomorrow mornng.

Tomorrow morning after breakfast I will go wth Mr. Hien to apply for Julia's vietnamese passport. It will be ready a week from Monday (December 3). When we get her passport, then we can go get the medical exam for her passport. After that, we simply need to wait for her I-600 visa application (which was submitted a couple of weeks ago) to get approved, and then shortly after that, we'll be done. Regardless of when that happens, after 11 am tomorrow, we will have nothing adoption-related that we need to do for 7 days. We will just be tourists. We have no idea what we are going to do, but we'll have plenty of time to do it.

I know that Barbie would tell you that she is most excited that she doesn't have to re-pack the suitcases again. This is the fourth different hotel stay that we have started in the past 7 days. We have a boatload of stuff with us. It is great to get to unpack and not wonder which suitcase or plastic bag or whatever someone's toothbrush, underwear, passport, etc. is in. Therefore, I will put up with this bad internet if it means we don't have to pack again.

I know that a picture is worth a thousand words, but our picture-uploading situation hasn't been the best. I'll try again tomorrow.

Hope you are all well. We're all pretty good.

Take care,

Doug for the Atkins 5