Our final appointment is completed! We traveled to the US Consulate today and we were there about 2 hours. We turned in Nora’s medical information, her passport, visa photo and adoption papers. These things will be processed by Thursday for her visa. We will get her passport back with her visa and an important sealed envelope that we need to turn into immigration customs in New Jersey when we land for our connecting flight to Pittsburgh. She will become a US citizen in Newark, NJ. We saw Nora’s friend Benjamin who was in her class at the orphanage. He is being adopted by a family in upstate New York. Nora and Ben held hands, played a bit in the consulate by pushing buttons on a vending machine, and then pushed each other. 🙂 This was just her little friend. Her “boyfriend” is still in the orphanage in X’ian. These girls are going to keep Brad on his toes!
We celebrated by eating at McDonald’s and buying diapers! McDonald’s menu was surprisingly very close to USA’s. Then we walked back to Adoption Island and took some more pictures with the statues on the island. It was not nearly as busy today so Nora got to run around and be a little independent, which she liked. We walked back past pet street again. Nora still points to the animals and has a surprised look on her face. Just wait until she meets Tucker the dog, the cats, fish and chickens!
Dana and Clara are not ready to come home. They started voicing this today. Dana does not want to ride the plane back with a screaming nazgul (her little sister/Lord of the Rings reference). Both Clara and Dana said they would come back to China for sure. I told them if we stay longer I would have to put them in school. Here older kids go to school from 8 am to 6 pm. They have a two hour break for lunch/recess. Most of the kids go home during this 2 hour break. High school kids go to school 6 days a week. All of the kids have lots of homework each night. Younger kids just go to school from 8 am to 12:30, five days a week. I don’t what age they start going later into the evening.
Tomorrow we are going to a Safari park. It is the largest zoo and safari park in Asia. There are cable cars that go above the animals and a train that goes around part of the park. Panda Bears here we come!
CoulsonFamily 