Changsha

Last night we tossed and turned. Today was a travel day. We are now in Changsha in Hunan province. The hotel here is pretty amazing and the room is on a non-smoking floor. Our entire group and a couple of other people we have seen are all situated here. It appears that the hotel is trying to gain slice of the adoption business pie. We are on the 31st floor and the 30th floor is a playroom. We have seen other non-Chinese-Nationals with Chinese babies in the hotel and you could feel the collective group swoon when they came by. As I type this we are about 19 hours away from meeting our little one. When we walked into our room we say this:

Yes, we both did a double-take. While the bags were being rounded up we headed downstairs for lunch and had a burger and some pasta. I love Chinese food and I have been eating it non-stop but I feel as we get closer to Maya we have been yearning for more comfort food. Damn Nesting mode.

We are about to walk around the city with our group before we have a final dinner with all of the other couples. We are trying to get a tour of the orphanage but it does not look like it is going to be possible. We have learned that Hunan is one of the poorest provinces in China. A lot of the other kids that are adopted are given care by foster families before being adopted. Our Hunan babies at the You Xian orphanage are not so lucky and I fear that because of this Maya may have more bonding and attachment issues, but we will see.

At about 9PM in Chicago we will meet Maya. I hope you all will be thinking about us at this time. When you get up in the morning hopefully we will have pictures and possibly video (if I can figure out the camera). Wish us luck, because after the next entry we should be three!

The other pictures are of a guy we saw on the street fixing an electrical line (poster boy for OSHA) and the other one is the view from our hotel window.