Lunch at TGI Fridays & Farewell to Nathan

A couple of photos from Sunday evening. It's just not a party until you wear your bloomers on your head!

Mia seemed in pretty good spirits even going down for her morning nap without a fuss (Sasha doesn't even do that!). Nathan made several runs to the grocery store to get the apartment all stocked up (i.e. Tamara with a stroller, toddler, baby stuff and 5 l. bottles of water just don't mix) prior to his departure. I must admit to being very sad that he's leaving. He is a very adventurous person and always helpful (must be that whole Eagle Scout thing) and finds new things for us to go see and do that are even possible with Little Miss Mia along.

We decided to try eating out for lunch again. TGI Fridays is fairly close to our apartment and we thought they'd be more understanding of a little one than some of the other restaurants. The female wait staff seemed to really like Mia and one actually came over, got her out of her stroller and walked her around. She received her first balloon and was as excited to chew on it's cord as she was about the balloon itself.

Mia seemed perfectly content to sit and snack on baby cookies, Gerber fruit snacks and cheerios while we ate our lunch. This made us hopeful that our farewell dinner for Nathan at our favorite Uzbeki restaurant off of Old Arbat street.

We had discovered that our intenet was down ... again all morning and we called David to see if he could swing by and redo our modem. I had asked for the instructions but am certain he thinks we'll end up messing things up. He doesn't know how we spent much of lives being techies which is fine. It'll be our little secret. He popped by with our registration cards (note for those of you new to Moscow - Russia requires you to be registered during your stay in their country. You can do this yourself although I'm not certain how but usually your apartment or hotel will handle this for you. David actually just makes a copy of your passport and visa and takes the little white card as opposed to taking your entire passport which always makes me nervous in a foreign country and gets things handled. It costs a bit of money. I think it's 200 rubles a piece which is about $8. All his apartments have a scanner, copier, printer combination unit which has been very helpful while here for our adoption. While he was toying with the modem, he offered to take us to Ismailova which is the huge flea market. I had mentioned this market to Vlad as we went there in 2006 and it was great and he told us it wasn't safe. So far everyone I've spoken to couldn't disagree more. Hey .. we've been to the big Paris flea markets and it HAS to be safer than the big flea market in Nigeria for goodness sakes!

We decided for Nathan's last night here that we would go to our favorate restaurant, Eastern Quarter, which is Uzbeki. It is located on a side street to Arbat. If you see the big cow in front of My My and head around the corner, you'll see a little restaurant sandwiched in between My My and Plotnikov Pub. They have wonderful food and I would highly recommend the Plov (a rice dish with onions, garlic and other tasty bits), the Samsa (a personal favorite) which are little rolls with minced lamb, onions, etc. inside, and a kebab called Sashlykk which come in pork, lamb, beef and chicken. The lamb ones are one of our favs. We have also tried the Cheese Bichak which is a flat patty with bits of harder cheese, parsley and of course dill in the middle. Not a fav. We also were very adventurous one night and tried a goat's milk drink which yes, had dill floating in it. Also not a fav. They have a decent selection of beers and they only take cash. For our dinner last night, we spent about 1800 rubles which is approximately $72. Very, very good.

We also picked up a couple bottles of German sparking wine. We've been trying various sparkling wines from Russia, the Ukraine and even one from South Africa. I think the South African one was my personal favorite ... well behind Moet of course which we bought in duty free in Chicago in anticipation of a moment that would require extreme celebrating. We really had no idea how many countries do sparkling wine. I would say that there is probably a reason why we haven't heard that many of these places have sparkling wine :)

We popped into the éxpensive' grocery store. It's just so pretty and clean. It always reminds me of Whole Foods where I always just feel healthier walking into the store (just like I always feeling trendier when drinking a latte at Starbucks). We picked up some mystery pasta (lovely looking pasta in the frozen food section ... they look home made) which we have no idea what kind of filling it is and a couple of pizzas for backup. We also found some ice cream that Nathan decided needed to make it into our cart. The German Brut sparkling wine was good and the ice cream was cute (the photo is of Nathan double toasting his departure from Russia ...he's trying not to look like he's jumping for joy but let me tell you it's obvious he is. Jealousy!).

It is now Tuesday morning. I just gave Vlad our $150 for Mia's expedited passport which he can pursue next Tuesday when the court documents are . With good luck, her passport will be done on Thursday morning and we can head to the Embassy on Thursday at 11 a.m. Yes, I have the most perfect little outfit for her - all stars and stripes in a pant set of course so we won't show any skin on the way to the Embassy. Thursday will definitely be a great day. I just remember thinking the last time we were there that the Embassy guy that was helping us had to be the smartest, nicest person. There was no talk of any need for a bribe or fascillitating payment. It just seemed like home. I also paid our transportation bill which included our court trip, two trips to the orphanage, our pick up from the airport and Nathan's trip today to the airport. The bill was $355.

Nathan just left for the airport. He was trying not to do the happy dance in front of me but I can tell he's excited. He gets the bed of red all to himself. Tomorrow he gets to pick up Blake Christensen for some white tum tum rubbing and male bonding. He gets to geocache non-stop with no negative repurcusions (when I'm home I actually expect him to get some chores done in addition to caching). He can eat horrible greasy food and watch all the Bourne / action movies he wants. He may decide that he would like me to extend my time in Moscow :)

So this begins three days by myself with Mia. Nathan had a little chat with her about her needing to be a very good girl for Mama. I know she only knows a few English words but hopefully she got the gist of the discussion. We shall soon see.