August 27--At "Home" in Guangzhou

We have been at the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou since Saturday afternoon, and, unbelievably, we will be on our way home in less than 48 hours. This leg of the journey has been so easy and relaxing compared to the earlier steps. The White Swan, also known as the "Stork" hotel, is situated on Shamian Island, which has a decidedly European feel to its architecture and is relatively small in size (you can walk around the whole island in about 20 minutes). In addition, there are many parks and plazas, not much traffic, and TONS of things for babies and foreign travelers, especially western-style food. It is a little like walking the boardwalk at Ocean City or the main drag in Gatlinburg, only in addition to all the China trinkets, you can buy all kinds of baby things as well. If you drop off your laundry at any of the dozens of local businesses, you will probably also walk out with a free stroller rental and any number of "free" gifts designed to get you to actually buy something there. We actually had fantastic Italian food the other night, which was better than most Italian restaurants I've eaten at in the U.S. People here do not look at you as strangely as they did in Hubei, and more people speak at least enough English to communicate over a sale or to order a meal. Once again, our CCAI representatives have been wonderful--they help us with everything from getting around to holding our babies when they are fussy, and of course, navigating the remainder of the paperwork and government red tape to get our babies out of China. We have done a fair amount of sightseeing here, as we have not had much to do prior to our all-important Consulate appointment (and we don't even go to that--Grace and Kathy handle the appointment for all CCAI families in their group). We had the babies' medical appointments and visa photo on Monday, but nothing else until all the families travel to the US Consulate on Thursday to take the "Oath" before returning home on Friday. We already know that the trip home is going to be miserable. First, Sophia does not relish traveling of any kind--she always gets fussy on our bus trips and cried bitterly for 20 minutes before falling asleep on the flight from Wuhan. Second, it sounds like most of the families will be traveling with us from China to Japan and many will be continuing with us to Detroit. This is not just the Hubei families, but most of the adopting families here right now--and there are dozens of us. So even if Sophie is a peach, I'm sure many of the other babies will not! I told Michael we should just prepare for the worst day of our life and we'll probably be fine.....

Anyway, we are very ready to get home and get on with our lives. It's been great to have this time to bond with Sophia with very few other responsibilities, and we have enjoyed getting to know the other families in our group, but we miss Nicholas like crazy, and just miss our regular routine. We are so grateful to our parents for making it possible for both of us to experience this incredible journey, but now we are ready for it to be over!