We're back in Kazakhstan! ... and still waiting.

Good afternoon, it’s Wednesday here in Almaty and we’re waiting to meet the head nurse from the Delphin Baby House at the airport around 5:45. We expect to receive our beautiful new daughter and bring her back to the Kazzhol Hotel, where we’ll be changing our first diaper, preparing our first bottle of formula – lots of firsts tonight. (Hopefully first full night of sleep? Ha ha ha.)

The flight in was smooth – the Germans love their cigarettes too much so the Frankfurt Airport was a difficult place to find 4 hours of rest during a 6-hour layover. We eventually settled on some padded benches at a colossal McDonald’s food court in terminal 2. Highly recommended if you, too, wish to avoid the $240 day rate at the Sheraton.

Our flight from Frankfurt went by surprisingly quickly, and we got in at 11:30, were picked up by driver Nicholai and coordinator Oleg – and whisked to the Kazzhol Hotel (we expected to be in the Hotel Kazakhstan but this place is just fine, and cheaper). They’ve put a crib in our room and we went to a large supermarket that had everything we could possibly want – baby food and juice in all flavors and sizes.

It’s a national holiday – I think it’s Victory Day – so many people are wearing green military hats with red stars on them and there are many icons of national and civic pride around. In Almaty (Alma Ata) this includes apples, because it’s the home of the world’s first wild apples. (Benjamin and Jacob, that’s for show and tell on Monday

For the last 4 weeks in Miami, I have had to pinch myself to believe that we ever left town and spent more than a month in Kostanai, or that we spoke Russian, or saw tractors and belly dancers. But today it feels oddly natural to be speaking Russian again, and reading Kazakh signs. It means I wasn't hallucinating about the first trip, and it seems we're actually in a far-away land doing fun things like adopting a princess.

The city is beautiful with lots of trees and parks (as leafy as Gainesville, Fla. perhaps) – I would be eager to spend a month here. But compared with Kostanai, it’s very urban. Many more cars. More vendors on the street. Expensive prices for things. Fancy international designer perfume and clothing shops. And a few times people in the grocery store seemed to intentionally shove or at least bump me in a hurry to pass by (the aisle was plenty wide, but they needed my space). Our hotel TV gets both CNN Europe and BBC World channels and the buffet for breakfast had coffee, omelets and sausage included in the price of stay, so we’ll not lose weight as we did on the first trip May 3-April 8.

After walking around Almaty for just an hour this morning and getting some groceries, we’ve taken a long nap and are just in waiting mode now. Sleep was much needed but we have a new family member to go look after.