We have arrived!

Almost exactly two years after we put in our application for adoption, we have arrived in Hungary! Honestly I never knew where Hungary was on a map before a few months ago (Geography teacher - fail) and it took me a while to actually find it. Apparently it's in Europe. Who knew?

We flew from Paris to Budapest, about a 2 hour flight over Germany and Austria. I will remember next time to pack only things made out of styrofoam, and very feather-lite clothing since I guess they charge by the kilo! Now, I thought since I had thought so far ahead as to purchase extra bags online when we bought the tickets (which seemed relatively cheap at the time!) that we would be good to go. "We charge by the bag, yes, but you still have your maximum 20 kilo per passenger limit", they told me as I gave the lady the cutest little puppy dog eyes I could muster. No good. So we have 60 kilos total between the three of us....and when the first bag got weighed in at 26.5 kilos I knew we were in trouble.  They charge about $21 for EACH kilo over!  I kept the puppy dog eyes going the whole time, and by the end of it when tears were almost starting to drop, the lady finally took a little pity on my and waived about 30 kilos...and still happily charged us an amount that was about equal to what I paid for the tickets.  Well, at least we got to Paris for almost free.

Anyway, we got here safe and sound, and all of our bags made it with us. I consider that success!

We were met at the airport by our wonderful facilitator George, and a social worker named Rita. They led us out to the van that was waiting, and they whisked us off to a strip mall to eat lunch, then we were off to our little town (about a 3 hour drive). It was SO nice not to have to worry about how to read signs, how to get from place to place, and just have someone showing us where to go. They are both so nice and take such good care of us.

My first impressions of this place: It's just like Kansas only I can't read anything. The airport looked the same, the strip mall looked the same (I could even tell one store was a "Lowe's" but it was called "Practikar"), the interstates looked the same. A couple of times as I was looking out the window along the interstate I even saw the Black Hills of South Dakota in the distance.

What I miss the most: my Culligan water filtration system at home that give me unlimited drinking water (we'll be keeping "Civis" in business during this trip, with as much water as we drink), and my unlimited internet at home. We have an internet stick that limits our bandwidth, and we'll inevitably have to go buy more soon....unfortunately pictures may be sparse for a while. :(

....Tuesday we meet our little girl!  We miss you all - please email us or comment here!