Landed in Lanzhou

We made it!  Our guide, Sally, and driver, Tom, met us at the airport to bring us to our hotel.  Why do I always feel like the in country staff lies to us about their real names?  Is it because they're afraid we might slaughter them if we tried to say them?  Maybe this is another thing we can blame on the Bubba Gump effect.

Anyway, Sally is very nice and told us a lot about Lanzhou, our home for the week, as we drove the hour and a half from the airport.  It is a small city for China with 3.3 million inhabitants.  It has a very unique landscape.  Siberia's sand has blown here over the centuries to create huge hills all around, that in turn have created a little "valley" where most of the people live.  China is implementing a new project where they are going to plant trees on all the sand hills and then irrigate with the Yellow River to create more vegetation.  I hope that river has a lot of water in it.  They've already started on it, as you can kind of see in the pictures.  This certainly doesn't look like any other part of China I've ever seen.  It reminds me more of Kazakhstan, with its arid feel, which I guess shouldn't be that surprising.  Kazakhstan isn't too far from here.

Anyway here are a few pictures from today:

    The girls as we were leaving the Garden Hotel this morning...we can't wait to go back on Friday!

This was spotted in an airport shop.  So much material.  So inappropriate for an adoption blog.

                     Our view as we were coming in for a landing.  See the need for greenery?

These huge sand hills covered the entire length of the freeway as we drove in.

                                                    "Tom" and "Sally" leading the way!

Believe it or not, this is Lanzhou's "suburbia"

Quick shot of the Yellow River as we drove into the city

Anyway, just wanted to give you a snapshot of where we are.  I'm sure I'll take many more photos as we are out and about for a week.  The hotel we are at, the Zugong, is just ok.  For anyone traveling after us, I would enquire about the JJ Sun instead.  When I turned on the shower, and it smelled like urine, I almost cried. It could've been the jet lag, but probably it was the urine smell.  Gianna held her breath the whole time.   But it's ok...we can do this for a week.  I need to stop being a spoiled American is all.

My aunt and uncle made it here around 8pm and stopped by our room to have a quick dinner with us.  They are staying just across the hall.  Two other families who are adopting are traveling here even later tonight and will be our "travel group".  One family is a couple married 32 years, and this will be their first child.  They have an amazing story of perseverance in becoming parents.  The other family has 2 boys at home, and this will be their first little girl.  We connected on Facebook quite a while ago, so I'm really excited to meet them in person.  My aunt and uncle were actually on the same flight as one of the families from the states to Beijing, so they've already met.  Both of these families' girls' are also coming from the same orphanage as Tallulah.

Speaking of the star of the show, our little nugget will be leaving her orphanage tomorrow at 8 am and should get here around 1:30pm!  This is the part I most dread.  Of course, the end game is that we are here to adopt her and welcome her into our family.  But what I mean is tomorrow she is going to be taken from the only home, friends and caregivers she's ever had--her entire life, as imperfect as it may have been, is all she's ever known and it's about to disappear overnight.  And she's most definitely at an age where she will have some emotions about that, I am sure.  I can't stop reliving when Evie was brought to me, and the 2 weeks of pure grief and trauma that poor child went through.  Being at the Garden Hotel last night really brought back some fresh memories (for me, not her).  Just thinking back to the hopeless, terrified way she cried makes me get all choked up.  I hate that she ever felt that way, and I hate that we might be putting another sweet baby through that.  In the travel prep call with our agency, this transition is likened to a kidnapping, and if you look at it through Tallulah's eyes, that's got to be exactly what it feels like.

 A couple of good things:  On the car ride here tomorrow, one of the other girls who will be coming along to meet her new family too is reported to be one of Tallulah's closest friends.  I'm not sure how a 20 month old has best friends, but I'm grasping for straws here, so I'm going to take it.  Sally also told me that Tallulah's nanny is supposed to be coming along tomorrow, so that makes me happy too.  At least she will be surrounded in the car with familiar faces and her nanny will be here to reassure her that everything will be ok.  Evie didn't have that, and sometimes I wonder if it would've made a difference.

Anyway, overall, we are so excited that this is Tallulah's last night as an orphan and so ready to meet our new sweetheart.  We are hoping and praying that she is able to understand soon that we love her and will take care of her every need.  And we would be really grateful if you would join us in wishing her little heart the same speedy healing.

I'll post tomorrow night if/when I can depending on how things are going.  Oh and also, I think I fixed the comment issue.  Anyone should be able to leave one now.  Let me know if not.