We have finalized our travel plans, and things have changed a bit. We are leaving Montrose on May 19th (Less than 1 month!!) and will travel through Frankfurt, Germany. We will layover there for 2 nights to give the kids a break in travel, and then we will leave and arrive in Almaty, Kazakhstan on May 22. We stay there for 2 nights, and then we leave for Bishkek by van on May 24th. We will meet Toktogul on May 25th and visit his orphanages, an older one and his current one...and then he leaves with us that day! After that, we remain in Bishkek a few days to finish paperwork, and then we drive back to Almaty on May 30th. The adoption process will technically be completed on May 31st, but we will not head back home until June 6th. During that time frame I will fly to Petropavlovsk to visit the girls we sponsor through the Antares Foundation as well as visit the orphanages there. It should be an eye opening experience and I will learn a lot, I am sure.
We are flying Lufthansa to and from the USA, which we flew in the past and enjoyed. We are still making arrangements for our stays in Almaty, but in Bishkek we are staying at the Asia Mountains Guest House, which looks like a wonderful place to stay and is very reasonably priced.
We will try and blog from each location, depending upon internet access. We will also try and upload photos as we can but due to the slow connections there we will likely try and upload most of them after we return home.
So, that's it! Now we just work on tasks at home to ge ready, to pack, to add to my lists. It doesn't seem like a mere 30 days from now we will be in a country that now has a very familiar feel to it, a country where no one speaks our language, where we will absolutely be looked at strangely everywhere we go with our little English speaking obviously Kazakh sons, a place that has given us the greatest gift of all...the gift of parenthood.
3 comments:
There are plenty of internet cafes in Bishkek. Make sure with Lufthansa that you get your couple rate. You have to ask for it, but you your spouse should fly for half off. I don't know how that works for children.
We land in Bishkek on the 25th and would still love to meet up and take you all out for dinner somewhere. Would you prefer that I contact you via email once in country? Or do you want to make plans for us meeting in advance. That is, if you think you will have time! It sounds like you will be busy!
Thank you for sharing as you go along. My husband and I hope to adopt from Kyrgyzstan someday and it is encouraging and educational to hear another's story.
Jamie,
I am not sure exactly what our schedule will be like in Bishkek, but it would be awesome to get together if we could. Maybe it would be easier to email once we are there and figure it out since we don't have a clue what is going on once we arrive, or for that matter how Toktogul will adjust to all of this :-) I will be checking my email as often as I can while there, so we should be able to connect that way easily...just be sure and include a contact number in your email once you arrive so we know how to call you!
Cindy
Sounds great. I have a cell phone there in storage. I just can't remember the number right now. We'll probably email you on our first full day in-country. I'm not planning on heading to Osh or Karakol until the end of my first month or so, so we'll be in Bishkek the entire time you all will.
See you on the other side!
Jamie
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