The Kamensk Journey

Well, the excitement of court is over. We have reunited with our son. And now we wait some more. At least we are in a nice apartment in downtown Ekat. I enjoyed our stay in Kamensk simply because we were so close to Colby but I'm glad we aren't staying there. There is so much to tell about our stay in Kamensk, I'm not sure where to start. Here goes.

We finally arrived in Ekat at 4:30AM local time on Friday 1/30 (around 6:30 PM Thurs 1/29 in CT). What a long trip we had. We both slept some on the plane but it was an off and on sleep. Not much help. We had hoped to get some rest when we got wherever we were going to stay. No luck there. Svetlana drove us right to Kamensk and we brought our stuff into the small house we were going to stay in. Then we headed right to the baby home to see Colby. Hungry and tired but thrilled to see him again. That will be a different blog I think. So, the house.

The house is rather cute on the outside. It looks like a small log cabin. I always wanted to stay in one, now I don't. Well, I still do, just not this one. I think the owners rent it out mostly in the summer. It seems more like a summer cottage. It really belongs on the beaches of Lake Winnepesaukee. Anyway, rather cute inside but freezing cold inside. Being Russia, you would think they have great heating, but not there. Only a few small electric heaters and one portable one. The downstairs was one big room with the bathroom off to the one side. Upstairs was 2 small bedrooms. At least they got warm. Mike and I stayed in the bedroom most of the time watching movies on the laptop or reading, wrapped up in the blankets.

The first day in Russia it was -27 degrees celcius, not sure of the conversion. Let's just say TOO COLD! The house wouldn't warm up. Luckily we spent most of our time in the baby home, but that was too warm and stuffy. So, cold in our house, freezing on our walks to the baby home, then sweltering hot in the baby home. No wonder I got sick.

To top off the heating situation, when we finally got back to the house on Friday night around 7 to try and heat up something little to eat and take a shower, we couldn't. Frozen water pipes. You must be joking, right? Nope! No water. So we hadn't had a decent shower since we left home, we were frozen and we were hungry. Great start to our journey. Ugh! Luckily Mike was able to go get someone in the office and describe the situation. They weren't happy to come out in the cold but we sorted it out and finally had water around 9 PM. Finally, a nice hot shower. Then bed! You would think we would really have a great night's sleep right? Nope! No sleep. I guess we were all worked up about seeing Colby and the time change and everything. We kept waking up almost every 2 hours. And the pipes froze one more time around 3AM. What fun...

Ok. So the start wasn't great. And there is more to tell. But we did have 5 great days with Colby seeing him almost 6 hours every day. We made it through. Now we just wait to bring him home.

More to come on our adventure. Keep checking!