Picking up where we left off...

In many respects, it seems like yesterday that we were in St. Petersburg.  The all too familiar sights and sounds of this busy city have barely left our memories.  The sound of the studded tires on the pavement, the mass amount of traffic, the inability to read a sign, or understand a conversation...nothing has changed.
 
However, some things are different this trip.  For starters, the weather is much colder.  There is snow on the ground, and lots of it.  As a matter of fact, this season has broken a 100 year record for the amount of snowfall.  Also, we are staying in a different hotel in a differnet part of town.  As a result, we have no idea where to find some of our favorite places to eat.  Our first order of business is to locate a grocery store, and navigate the isles in search of items to stock the hotel room.  Fortunatley for us, there is one right across the street.

As for our hotel, it is much like the Andersen Hotel from our last trip; clean, modest accomodations.  For those of you who have been on a cruise before, envision the quarters from your stateroom.  That is our room for the week.  Not a lot of room to run around.

The running around that we will do will start tomorrow morning.  We will be wisked-off to the governmental equivelent to our social services to be presented with an official referral on Max's sister, however, we are not supposed to know that she is in fact related.  Crazy, I know, but welcome to adoptions in Russia.

Once we have been presented her background information, which will include any medical history, etc, we will then head off to the orphange to meet her for the first time.  I don't think we really know what to expect.  I keep envisioning a younger, female version of Max walking through the door tomorrow.  One thing will be certain, she will be tired of see the flash of a camera after our visit! 

So, until then, we will dine on the Pringles we picked-up in Amsterdam, and hope to get some sleep tonight.  Our biological clocks keep telling us that it not time to sleep, since it is the middle of the day.  Our travel alarm clock tells us otherwise.