We had a delicious English breakfast, but my they have some strange things for breakfast there! There was scrambled eggs, bacon, ham but then there was baked beans and a few other items that I have never associated with breakfast! There was marmalade, jam, toast and Nutella! There were even some delicious pastries featuring raisins in one and chocolate in the other! The coffee was so nasty I couldn't even drink it - no wonder brits drink tea! They don't know what good coffee tastes like!
We headed to the airport by "Hoppa Bus" and headed in to deal with security and checking out bags. It went very smoothly except that they have a two stage security and I forgot to keep my bag of "liquids" out for the second stage so my carry on bag didn't pass. It was not a problem, I just had to open it and the agent took a few things out and scanned them, and then we were on our way.
Our flight was a little delayed, but we didn't care! When we got on the plane, I sat next to a woman who was soon to become a wonderful friend and such a wealth of information. Her name is Violetta! It's so easy to remember because purple is my favorite color!
I asked her where she was from, hoping to "collect" another traveler, and she said she was Bulgarian. I found out that she grew up and lived most of her life in Christy's city! She has been living in London for over a year. She was a pediatric nurse in Christy's country most of her life, but had switched to caring for the elderly and moved to London.
She was a wealth of information about Christy's country and city in general - plus, with her experience of being a pediatric nurse there, I was able to talk with her extensively about caring for a child with Down Syndrome and other medical issues. I was able to show her photos of our family and Christy and she just loved it!
I found out that she was returning to her home country to visit her son and his wife - their first baby had been born that morning! She was so excited to get to see her first grandchild. Her son is her only child and it sounded like she is very close to him and that he has a wonderful wife. I hope her month long stay is a wonderful break for her as it sounds like she works long hours at her job.
She even stayed by our side until we had all our luggage!
At the airport our enterpreture and driver met us. His name is Yavor (I remember it by picturing the officers from the old TV show Hogan's Heroes saying "Ya Vol Herr Capitan" or something like that! Yavor is a friendly guy. I'd guess he's in his late thirties, but I really have no idea. He wisked us past the money exchanges at the airport, telling us that they were a rip off. He took us to a little hole in the wall exchange place and we got a decent exchange (I checked online when we got to the hotel). I am sure he is a safe driver, but the traffic here is insane. We did see one accident and people walking in the midst of heavy traffic trying to get a police to come to the accident scene - crazy!!! I thought for sure we would get in an accident, so many close calls, but he was never concerned - kept up an enjoyable banter the whole time, effortlessly weaving between cars/buses/trucks! YIKES! I am so glad we don't have to drive here, that is for sure!
We got to the hotel, we were given a cell phone to use to reach Yavol or Tony (the adoption agency contact). We haven't met her, but I think we might today. Then he said he'd be back tomorrow at 1:30 to pick us up, and he left. We felt abandoned. But it was fine. We went to our room and I got onto my Facebook group for families who are using our adoption agency and adopting from this country. They were so helpful and encouraging - thanks guys (you know who you are!). They recommended that we eat at the hotel restaurant, and told us that we could even order a 1 1/2 liter bottle of water there. We had no idea what awaited us in the basement - a gourmet dinner and the entire place to ourselves!
We both ordered chicken and were not disappointed. The food was a feast for the eyes with amazing presentation as you can see. Daryl's dinner was chicken breasts stuffed with cheeses and wrapped in a super lean bacon kind of meat. His side was super buttery mashed potatoes with some sort of deep fried bread/crackers standing up from the "square" serving of potatoes!
My dinner was a chicken breast rolled up with some creamy sauce with what looked like spinach or broccoli in it, and it also was wrapped in the lean bacon like meat. Only my meat was cut in half and standing at attention, guarding a beautiful rectangle of grilled mushrooms, zuchinni and peppers! As you can see it looked amazing, and tasted out of this world!
After dinner we settled in for the night. Chatted a little with home, and took our Advil PM in hopes of sleeping. Our room was stiffling hot and the AC is not working, so we had to chose between too hot or too noisy. We ended up with too noisy to I wasn't able to really sleep much until well after midnight, but I did sleep - at least until 3:00. I forced myself to remain in bed until after 4 am, but then I got up to finish up my blogging. Daryl didn't take the Advil PM until after we were awakened by a chat window from our daughter (around midnight) so he's sleeping still, but mine has worn off.
Today we might walk around and do some sight seeing - but the most important thing we want to do today is to buy some chocolate! We've heard the Bulgarian chocolate raved over and we are more than ready to try it out!
Yavol will pick us up early this afternoon for the 3 hour drive to Christy's city. Hoping for a nice ride (I've heard of others who got car sick as it's weaving through a mountainous region). Until next time, blessing to you all and thanks so much for your amazing support and prayers!
Glad everything is going so smoothly. Can't wait to read that you have met your little girl!
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