Sad Goodbyes, Toilet Humor & Other Travel Adventures

Tears of joy and sadness filled our house the night before our departure. It suddenly struck everybody that mom and dad will be gone for a good two to three weeks and so it all surfaced. It, honestly, caught me by surprise and it turned out that our goodbyes were harder than anticipated. In the end, though, the kids were excited, and so with many hugs, kisses and goodbyes, we set off.

 

..and off we went. The travel actually went really smooth! Praise the Lord! In Amsterdam, we kicked the new "morning" (actually the middle of the night for us) with some mighty fine cups of Netherland coffee. Yes, they know how to make the good stuff here. One of my favorite hobbies is pursuing that perfect cup of coffee. So, you have probably figured out now that this is Jeromy writing and not Stacy. Since we are both sitting in a "flat" (apartment) with little responsibility (compared to normal Idaho life) we decided to take turns with the blog updates. Anyway, we embarked on a train ride to Central Amsterdam (the old and now touristy part of Amsterdam). Wow, what a cool place... and the people and culture seemed so friendly and festive. Cool, classic type bikes are everywhere... and people actually ride them everywhere.

 

Uhh.. but yes it is perhaps a little more liberal in some ways as well.

For example, we (or I should say Stacy) almost ran into this before I redirected her in another direction

 

Yes, they have very convenient outdoor port a potties in Amsterdam on the corner of the busiest street. No need to worry about closing and locking bathroom doors. Just walk up and.. well anyway.. ya probably get the picture. Stacy mentioned this Asian couple walked by and as the "husband" explained to her what these contraptions were the lady, in disbelief kept saying, "no..nooo. nooooo!"

Truly, my apologies if this is offensive, but we found this more humorous and shocking than anything.

Well, after our 9 hour layover, we finally boarded our last plane to our "Eastern European country" and we made it right through customs without a hitch. Again, thank you Lord! All we had to do was show our passports. No, digging out documents, no interogation, just a couple of questions and we were on our way. From everything we have heard, this is not the norm. Perhaps the 1am arrival time had something to do with it. Anyway, we are here and resting up. We have a very nice and comfortable "flat" that we are staying in and everyone is most helpful and friendly that we have worked with. Here is a view from our flat.. Straight below our window is a flat roof with bottles all over. Apparently, a favorite pastime is to drink and chuck :)

Yes, it was snowing this morning. Just like Idaho weather around here. Raining last night, snowing this morning and now it is sunny! Yippee! Feels just like home.

Thank you again for your prayers and support! Please keep us in your prayers. Tomorrow at 11am, we have our first SDA appointment. This is our first official adoption appointment to which we find if we can receive an official referral which is scheduled to happen on Tuesday at 4pm. We then are scheduled to take a train to our region at 9:30pm, travel through the night and hopefully meet "Our Girl" on Wednesday!