we're here!

It was a beautiful landing this morning! I always forget how mountainous it is here!Loading up the van...
Albania's only airport bears the name of her most famous daughter...

This photo is for our friends, Steve & Anita... Yes, they really did pave the alley and install street lights and a sidewalk!!!

Thanksgiving Dinner!

After 23 and one half hours of traveling, we landed at Rinas Airport 30 minutes early! Of course, it’s always so nice to wheel the luggage cart out of the airport and look over the heads of the taxi drivers to find your family’s smiling faces there to greet you! You can feel the stress of travel just lift off your shoulders. Thanks to our very experienced driver, Mandi, we took some side-roads to avoid some of the congestion driving into Tirana, but it was still pretty heavy, even at 1:30 in the afternoon.

I always remember this trip from the airport to Tirana each time I visit Albania because it’s always fascinating to see what new changes have taken place since my last visit. There’s always a weird co-existence on display here of progress and “old Albania.” Like the old lady with her white head scarf grazing her cow on the little patch of grass around the side of the auto strata overpass – which in itself is something to marvel considering that just 10 years ago it was a windy, unmarked road barely wide enough for two-way traffic through a countryside dotted with groves of olive trees and concrete bunkers. Today it’s a four-lane road lined with gas stations, appliance stores, several un-finished “bar-restaurants”, numerous bill boards, and a Mercedes dealership. And just off the busy road, what used to be quiet little villages are now growing into little suburbs of Tirana, popular with those who would prefer residential living in a house with a garden to a high-rise. (In a country with frequent power outages, I could never understand anyone who would buy an apartment in 12-story building. I mean, who wants to carry their groceries up that many flights of stairs?)

We got a call on Mom’s cell from Cathy Watanabe (one of the house parents at Bethany’s home for 0-3 year-olds) that her husband Bob made the trip to greet us at the airport – but we missed him! (Probably because he wasn’t expecting us to arrive early!) We went straight to Bethany to see Alma, the assistant who will help us through many of the hoops that we have to jump, to set up plans for our Friday trip to Vlora to see Ellie. Alma wasn’t expecting us that early either and had gone to the bank so we waited at the Watanabe’s apartment (which is in the Hannah House on the Bethany compound). Bob arrived soon after and we enjoyed getting acquainted with them as well as meeting some of their 4 children and their newly adopted cat, Pickles! The Watanabes just moved to Albania in September. Bob was very excited to pull out a video camera and show us some of the footage he got of Ellie on Monday when he traveled to perform her assessment. It was so exciting and reassuring to hear her laughter and giggles for the first time and it made us yearn to get there and hear them in person! She was shown bundled up in several layers of clothing, playing on a rug on her tummy with a plastic toy. True to what we had read in the assessment, she did look tired as she was fighting to keep her eyes open at some points (recall an earlier post when we shared that the caregivers wake the children at 5AM every morning)! Because of her schedule, we are going to leave Tirana by 7:30 Friday morning to arrive in Vlore by 10 or 10:30 and get some time with her before she crashes for lunch and a nap. Before we head back to Tirana we’ll look for a hotel in Vlora which will be Nathan’s and my home for all of next week.

As we left Bethany, it started raining pretty heavily. Fortunately Mandi had dropped us off for our meeting with Alma and already brought Mom, Dad, Hannah, and our luggage back to the apartment. Mom and Dad’s place was toasty warm and Mom was working away at Thanksgiving dinner when we arrived! Dad stepped out in the pouring rain to pick up a fresh rotisserie chicken around the corner at Mr. Chicken (we were grateful that this great little shop re-opened after fears of the bird-flu subsided and people in Tirana began eating chicken again). We didn’t even miss turkey as Mom put together a spread of mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, cranberry sauce, corn bread casserole, and stuffing! Sadly we didn’t have room for the apple and pumpkin pies she and Hannah also made for dessert (there’s nothing like airplane travel and food to take away one’s appetite). Maybe Friday night? While we were in the kitchen getting the food on the table Mom reminded me that it was the day after Thanksgiving 2005 when I told dad and her that we were going to start the process of adopting a little one from Albania. Little did we know we would be here just one year later! We ate around 5 PM but it was already so dark that our weary, jet-lagged bodies thought it was much later. Even after posting some photos, showering, and unpacking some of our bags, we crashed in bed at 7:30.

Our next post should have photos of us with Ellie! YAAAAYYY!