Thursday,
May 27, 2009
It is check out day from the White
Swan Hotel and the big day to receive Lillianne's US Visa. This
really finalizes the entire process for us to become a family of
three. Lillianne will then become an official US Citizen!
In the morning, we had an early breakfast at the wonderful
buffet for the last time. Aaron had to have his last fill of
bacon! After breakfast, everyone did their final packing before
check out. Our guide Cordelia was meeting us with all the other
families to go to the US Consoliate to take our oath and receive
Lillianne's visa. Our guide also solidified some details on our
afternoon/evening train ride to Hong Kong for our final stay
before we flew out for home. She gave us our train tickets,
explained how we should check our luggage for the train ride and
how the whole process functioned in Guangzhou.
So, we checked out of the hotel and headed on a bus to the US
Consoliate. When we arrived, we were told we could not take any
pictures of the process inside, so we can only tell you how this
went. We were all gathered on the fifth floor of a large
cooperate building in downtown Guangzhou. We had to show our
passports and faces to the clerk to varify it was us and not
someone else adopting. This is really just a formality. The most
important piece of information came in a brown envelope. This
envelope was only to be opened by the immigration clerk when we
arrived in Chicago. This contained all of the legal paperwork to
verify that Lillianne is a valid US citizen and legally ours.
Once we received that envelope, a spokesperson stood in front of
all of us and recognized some of the returning families for
their second or third adoptions. Now it was the time we had to
raise our right hands and state that we swear that all of the
documentation given forth was truthful etc...
It is really amazing to know that all the paperwork, time going
to get fingerprints, signatures, reports, notarization of ALL
documents and the past 3 years have culminated into this
wonderful event. Everyone in the room wished each other
"Congratulations!" and we were off to the train station. We
quickly stopped for a McDonald's lunch and left on our train
ride to Hong Kong at 6:15pm.
Lillianne did great on the train considering it was going to
interfere with her bedtime schedule. Our adoption agency
arranged for our hotel in Hong Kong to pick us up. It took an
additional 35 minutes to travel from the train station to our
hotel...which was attached to the airport. Our driver gave us a
brief rundown of Hong Kong. We passed the world's largest
seaport for imports and exports. It took 15 minutes to drive by
it going 55mph! That's HUGE! Over 10 ships can be docked at one
time. We crossed the second largest expansion bridge in the
world. The largest is in Japan. Unfortunately, it was raining
(again), so you couldn't see too much detail.
We were all exhausted by the time we arrived at the hotel. Lilli
had a difficult time going to sleep, but Julie worked her magic
and got her to bed. We flew out the next day at 12:45pm...well,
make that 2:15pm. This should make you want to check out our
first update from home (use the "We're Home" link at the top)! |
Waiting at the Guangzhou Train Station
Outside the US Consulate
"Tea anyone?"
Wedding in Guangzhou |
