Waiting: Day Six

Today we moved past the halfway hump of our ten day wait. The adoption decree goes into effect at the end of day on Friday and we get to pick up dude on Saturday! As there are meetings with the Ministry of Education today we did not get to see her. We are all well adjusted to the time now, except for me since I am up late working with my colleagues in the U.S. Today we spent most of our day at the apartment except for a trip to the local department store and grocery store.

The main street here in Krasnoyarsk is Prospekt Mira. Our apartment is two blocks north of this street, and one further block east is a department store our translator told us about. Let's say that department stores are not the same here as in the U.S. It left much to be desired and it seems to me that the mall down the street from our apartment is a better shopping choice. We spent all of fifteen minutes in the four-story store before leaving and walking a new direction we have yet to go. We walked a few more blocks before circling back and came upon the main toy store in Krasnoyarsk. On our first trip we stopped in for a quick look but didn't really explore. This time we went up and down each department and picked up some Krasnoyarsk keepsakes for home. We took a new direction back to the apartment and passed by a football stadium.

The grocery store has become quite familiar for us. When you need vegetables you take what you want to a woman who weighs and tags them. I wrote yesterday about the grocery bags. Today, we wanted to try some new sausage. So, we watched an older woman and just picked up what she bought. It was quite simple. During checkout the worker said something which I understood to mean that her lane doesn't take credit cards so I pulled out the cash I had and paid. We've definitely had our adventures in grocery shopping. The other day we defrosted some white fish which turned out to be squid! I bought some butter and lemon and will cook it up tomorrow.

In case you missed it, we put up our Christmas tree!