Trip to China
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009 Well, yesterday I messed up! Today is Ava’s official adoption day. And let me tell ya…. what a day it was. You know how things are so crazy that you are past tears and you are on to just laughing hysterically? Well, we are at that point! We did not sleep well last night. We woke up and had a great breakfast at the hotel. We are so much happier here! I wish I could just forget about the hotel issues we have had but for some reason I am hanging on to the anger. I keep telling myself I need to put on my big girl panties and move on!!! After breakfast we met our guide at 9am as today we were finishing the adoption process for Ava. I reminded the guide that we still had to exchange money since yesterday we were only able to exchange part of the total amount we needed. We went to a different bank today. We were only exchanging $1600 so I thought it would be much easier than yesterday. We only had to fill out 1 form today however they wanted tons of additional documentation! They asked for my passport which is normal but then they wanted proof of how we obtained the money! All I had was a copy of our homestudy which showed that both Brandon and I work. They also wanted proof of what we were going to spend the money on so I had to submit our official Travel Approval from the CCAA. We had to wait while the documents were approved and copied. This is our 4th adoption and we have never had these types of issues in exchanging money. After 1 hour we were able to exchange the funds. We arrived at the Civil Affairs office at about 10:30am. We were able to complete the adoption process with no issues. I was able to chat with a lovely family I have met through bloggy land so that was wonderful. We then had to drive to Ava’s orphanage in a neighboring city to pay the orphanage donation and other fees. This is the first time we have had to do this. Normally all fees are paid when the adoption is processed at the Civil Affairs office. It was a 2 hour drive. We were told we would be stopping for lunch. There are no western type restaurants in the area so we stopped at a Chinese restaurant. It is common for the guide and driver to eat separately from us. We were escorted to a private room and our guide ordered for us then he left. We were left with 2 young girls as our waitresses. They kept coming in the room, looking at Ava then running out laughing. It happened repeatedly and I was wavering between tears and absolute anger. The food was not agreeable so after 20 minutes we asked for our guide and for the bill. The meal was not included in our fees. I was not happy with this especially since we ended up paying the equivalent of over $30 USD. On the way out of the restaurant a lady ran after us, grabbed Kiah’s arm, whirled her around and clasped Kiah’s face in her hands. She then grabbed Ava’s face to look at her. She started speaking to us in Chinese and we asked for our guide to translate. I’m not sure what she was saying but our guide said she was wondering who the “mama” was. When we got back to the van I took the guide aside and explained what had happened with the waitresses in the restaurant. He told me that the girls were not trying to be rude but were excited to see Americans and that he hoped their behavior did not sour our moods. At that point I just wanted to get to the orphanage, pay the fees and get back to the hotel. We arrived at the orphanage about 20 minutes later and had to wait until 2pm for the offices to open. There was a small play area in front of the orphanage building so we decided to play until we could meet them. There was a young man in the playground area who was acting weird. It was clear he was mentally unstable. We tried to stay on our side of the playground but he kept laughing wildly and trying to charge into us. Our driver was going crazy trying to keep us away from him.

At 2pm we completed the orphanage donation process and were then told we had to travel to another building for the notary process. After a 30 minute ride we arrived at the building. The notary prepared all of the adoption documents for us right there. Normally this does not happen while we wait and they are picked up on Friday prior to leaving for Guangzhou. We waited in the office for 1 hour as they finished all the documents and we paid our fees. We then jumped back in the van and headed back to Zhengzhou. We arrived back to the hotel at 5:30pm. We were exhausted. We ate at a restaurant in the neighboring hotel and we are hoping for an early bedtime. We will be doing some local sightseeing tomorrow. It has been a wild day today. Again I say…. Is it time to leave for Guangzhou yet?????

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