We are in Russia

Hi everyone....

Our two hour plane trip from Seoul to Russia was a rough.... alot of turbulence. You all know Jon and his "mild" fear of flying.... enough said.

The funniest thing on the plane.... the guy sitting next to us said "Sure could use a stoli." We both looked at him (it was just after Noon) and he laughed and told us "in the US, they say it's 5 o'clock somewhere, in Russia, it's Noon somewhere." Our kind of guy....

The airport was incredibly remote. The was only one runway/taxiway and was very narrow. The wings were out over the grass. The pilot also made a terrible landing (see... Jon's fear of flying). We then parked about 300 yards from the airport building and waited for buses straight from 1950 to shuttle us over. Once we got there, we waited for about an hour to get through passport control. Then, went through immigration and then finally got our bags (they were both there! Hurrah!).

We noticed once we made it through the double doors from immigration, two ladies were ferociously waving. We thought CHI (our agency) would have a sign so weren't sure who these ladies were. Anyway, they ran over to us, gave us hugs and welcomed us to the country. They had our photos from the St. Louis office.... Arina is the CHI rep here (young, speaks some English and has a great personality. Lana is our translator for the week....also young, speaks great English and has a great personality. They talked/laughed the entire way to the hotel.....

Vladivostok is beautiful. It reminds Jon and I both of northeast Iowa and Wisconsin with the leaves changing colors, etc. It's somewhat hilly with very narrow streets, with very FAST drivers. There were several landmarks on our way here....so there were alot of wedding parties on the side of the road taking photos. We also unfortunately saw a horrendous car accident with a fatality. Welcome to Russia!

Once we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by several other guests from Canada, New Zealand, etc. In fact, they invited us to "The White Rabbit", the bar in the hotel for some cocktails. We'll plan to catch up with all of them later this evening.

The hotel is near the ocean - a quick 2 minute walk. We already have ventured down there. The ocean is beautiful and some of the scenery was interesting... including men with speedos on (it's 50 degrees) and 15 year olds drinking beer on the beach. Fill you in with more later.....

We are so excited to meet Nikita on Monday morning. We go to court at 9am (5pm CST Sunday). Please pray for all of us and wish us well.

And Happy Birthday Pat Pat, hope you had a great one!!