Well, we have officially embarked on our long-awaited trip to pick up Emily Cate and Madelyn! Once again, we have arrived in Paris before dawn. I think we arrived at the same gate as last time (the one that is farthest from the shuttle bus) and we got the longest possible shuttle bus tour of the bowels of Charles de Gaulle airport. I think they are working on an underground train to replace the shuttle. They need to hurry; the shuttle leaves a very poor first impression of Paris.
The flight was fortunately short. We departed Atlanta on time and arrived in Paris an hour early. The jet stream is a beautiful thing - as long as you want to go east. It is now 6:20 in the morning here in Paris. We are in the same departure area for Sofia, and other than the fact that there is no snow on the ground, this trip so far looks exactly like the last one. Things will change significantly from last time when we get to Sofia this afternoon.
Last trip, Maggie met us at the airport and we left immediately for Lom. This time, we are on our own for a couple of days. When we get in this afternoon, we will pick up our car and then get ourselves to the hotel in Sofia. Tomorrow (Saturday), we are going to try to meet up with some new friends we met online. There is a church group that goes on a mission trip every year to the orphanage in Lom where Emily Cate used to live. They have known her since she arrived there four years ago. The really neat thing is that they have pictures covering the last four years of her life, so she will have a collection of "baby pictures". It was such a huge blessing to receive them and to hear from this mission group.
We were originally contacted by a young lady from England who found this blog and contacted us through the comments. She is the one who has made all of the pictures available - thanks, Beth! The other neat part of the story is that part of this group is from England, but the majority comes from First Baptist Church in Commerce, GA. Relatively speaking, they are practically neighbors. It has also worked out that we are here the same week as their mission trip this year. We won't have much time in Lom, so we are going to meet them at the airport in Sofia when they arrive and spend a little time visiting before they head north.
Our plan for the week is pretty simple. Maggie will meet us early Sunday morning at our hotel. We will drive to Lom and pick up Emily Cate around 11. We will then drive directly to Shumen and spend Sunday night there. We will pick up Madelyn early on Monday and then get back to Sofia as early as possible. Our goal is to get back and get their passport applications filed before the office closes on Monday afternoon. If we make it in time, the passports should be ready Thursday so we can have our visa interview Thursday afternoon at the US embassy. That will allow us to pick up the visas on Friday and we will return home on Saturday. If we don't get back in time on Monday, we will have to get the passport applications filed on Tuesday, so we won't get them back until Friday. That means we will have the visa interview Friday afternoon, but won't be able to get the visas until Monday and so won't be able to leave until Tuesday. Once the visa applications are filed, the only other scheduled activity for the week is a doctor's visit for an entry screening required for the visas. Otherwise, we will just spend time getting to know the girls and working out some version of "Bulglish" so we can understand each other.
For now, we have claimed a couch and chair in the corner of an airport cafe so Carolyn can rest her back before the next leg of the trip. We will be heading out of here in about three hours and should be in Sofia about the time everybody in the States starts thinking about getting up Friday morning. So, until then, we are hanging out in Paris!
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