WoW!!!

You will never understand a bureaucracy until you understand that, for bureaucrats, outcome is nothing and procedure is everything.
--Thomas Sowell

This sums up our day today. We left our hotel in Pune at 5:00 for a 6:00 flight. Leena did well on the airplane. Kent sat with her in the back row while Nate and I slept and Nate tried to do his math. We found our greeter/driver, who does not speak English, but managed to get us to our hotel, the Sri Nanuk. Our room was not ready so they put us in another room. As soon as we got to our other room, our room was ready so we moved again. Our driver then took us to the US Embassy, where we were able to by-pass the line of people who looked like they had been waiting there for 2 days. I tried not to look in their eyes as we walked right past them. It only took about 1/2 hour to file the I-600 for immigration.

Then we went back to the line (window 16 or 17) to file for the visa and get an appointment for Friday. We then borrowed somebody's cell phone to call our driver to come and pick us up. (We hired him to drive us around for the day for about $35.00). Then we headed for Dr. Chawla's office. We are required to have a doctor clear Leena for the Visa. We waited there for about an hour to see the Doctor, and then we waited another hour for them to type up the report. By this time we were pretty tired and hungry.

When we went to pay the Doctor, we realized that we had forgotten to change money at the airport. (For those who know that Kent never carries cash, this shouldn't surprise you.) So we gave them all of the rupees that we had, digging through our pockets for all of our change, and then offered them $5.00 US. Luckily they took that.

By now it was late afternoon, Leena and Nate were starving, we had no money and our driver did not speak English so he couldn't get us to a bank. Finally he drove around to one of his friends who worked at a gas station, and he was able to interpret for us where we could find a bank. At the gas station, I bought some milk for Leena (and spent our last Rupee on a Diet Coke for me - priorities!) Then we headed to the ATM, and back to the hotel where Leena slept until about 5:00.

We still had not eaten all day, except on the airplane. Nate was a trooper. He has been awesome on this trip. Really invaluable. I don't know how we could have done this without a third pair of hands. He has been so much fun. I think we have actually found his limits on sleep depriviation. The night before, Nate was ready to crash at 7:30, and kept asking how long Kent and I would be up. Kent and I were actually enjoying the opportunity to keep him up for a change.

We decided to try out a place to eat called the Angun for dinner, recommended by fellow Holt adopting families (thanks Sandwich and Devon!) Nate navigated the traffic, people and motorcycles to get us there, and he found it right away. Even crossing the street in Delhi traffic is no small task.

We had no idea what we were ordering but we ordered the exact thing our friends recommended. For you Indian food lovers our dinner consisted of: The Thali Special - Dal Makhani, Seasoned Vegetables, Shani Paneer, Pulao, Raita Papad, Pickle, Sweet Tawa Parantha, and Four Fulka. We also had one order of South Indian Thali which included Mini Dosa, Mini Uttapam, Idly and Vada, and an order of Dahi Bhalla.

We tried everything and we kept saying "What is this?" to every dish. Nate loved everything and is game for trying all of the spicy dishes. Then Nate was still hungry so we think we ordered some Tawa Parantha (which was steaming hot and delicious!) a cheese pizza and some bottled water. The whole meal was about $9.00! They were intrigued by Leena and kept bringing her sweets and an ice cream cone. She loved the ice cream.

After we got back to the hotel I had to lock myself in the bathroom to write this post because Leena does not want me to leave her side. She is fine when I am out of site...out of site, out of mind.

It was one of those hurry up and wait type of days. We didn't take any pictures so these are from earlier in the week.

We miss Cole, Eliza and Dalton tremendously. We miss all of our family and friends. We love you!