We have made it! Jason & I got on a flight on Wednesday at 4:25pm from Chicago to Stockholm, Sweden. It was an 8 1/2 hour flight. Pretty smooth, no real issues. It was pretty empty. We were able to get 4 of the middle seats on the plane to ourselves. One of us would sit up and the other then had 3 seats to lay across. The flight was on time and we got into Stockholm at 7:45am their time or 12:45am Chicago time. We had a 3 hour layover and then got on another plane to Moscow. Finally got in around 3pm Moscow time or 6am Chicago time. Both Scandinavian Airlines and Aeroflot were pretty nice.
We got through immigration quickly, found all 3 of our bags laying on a bag carousel together and then found Vladimir our driver. He took us right to the Medical facility for our blood/Xrays. We finally got to the hotel around 6:30pm Moscow time. We were pretty tired! Only had about 3 hours of sleep total in the past 36 hours. We are staying at Peter the 1st. (I'm attaching some pictures of the lobby that Jason just took) Its a very nice hotel only a 5 minute walk from Red Square and the Kremlin. We ordered some room service and went to sleep around 8pm Moscow time. Got about 4 solid hours of sleep and then another few hours on and off. Finally got up around 5:30am. I'm feeling a bit under the weather with a head cold so the dry air and no sleep are starting to take their toll.
The hotel has a nice breakfast buffet thats included in the cost. Had lots of choices, cereal, pancakes, omelets, pastries. I would definitely recommend staying here if you are on your way to Moscow soon. We took a walk to get some rubles and then some water. A bottle of water in the hotel costs $12 US dollars! Down the street its only $2!
We have our 8-doctor medical visit this afternoon and then will be off to Kemerovo tomorrow night on the 11:30pm flight. Only 4 more days until we see Maks! Our court date is Monday morning, hopefully everything will go smoothly and the judge will like us!
Sandra and Sandra made it too! Sandra's flight was cancelled out of Washington DC so they had to make some last minute changes and fly in on the 9th.
I'll try to update the blog again in the next few days! Dosvedonya!
Thinking of all of you. I've checked this blog so many times to see if you had time to post and if you got there ok. Prayers that all goes well. Take care, be safe! Love ya, Aunt Judy
ReplyDeleteHotel looks really nice. We'll all have to make a family visit to Russia someday when Ry and Maks are older. Hope you feel better soon! I'm so excited for you guys! Love, Les
ReplyDeleteGreat to see you're in Moscow and things are going well. Having adopted my daughter from Siberia and my son from right below Siberia in Kazakhstan, I know about arduous travel! Sleep as much as possible, drink lots of water, take vitamins if you have them.
ReplyDeleteI'll keep praying until you're safely back on US soil with precious Maks!
Dee