Update from the Dolan Family

I thought I would paste this email from the Dolan family. The Dolan's are another family from the ATL area adopting children from Latvia. My problems in Amsterdam are minor compared to theirs. Read on...

Hey Everyone,
We picked up Sintija and Maigurs yesterday. Well maybe I should start at the not-so-good beginning of our trip. Unfortunately, somewhere between Delta’s international ticket counter and Amsterdam’s passport check Michael’s fanny pack with his wallet in it was stolen. Fortunately, I had Michael’s passport in my purse. We’ve had to cancel our credit card, but we should be okay just withdrawing money from the ATM and converting the cash we brought into Lats and/or Euros.
Our day in Amsterdam wasn’t much fun because we couldn’t get money out of the ATM’s at first (all of our cash is in savings but their ATM’s just automatically withdraw the money from your checking account.) We had to wait until our bank opened so we could call them and have them transfer our savings balance into the checking account. In the meantime we had to walk about 7 km one way just to find a place that would convert our dollars to euro’s so we could pay for the hotel. Can you imagine what our cell phone bill will be like with all these calls to the banks, credit card companies and Delta? It’s $2.26 per minute to call from Latvia!
The trip started getting better when Daina, our lawyer in Latvia, met us at the airport. She has totally taken care of us since we’ve gotten here. She and our driver Dougness (sp?) took us all over Riga to find an outlet converter because the one we brought broke in Amsterdam (of course). Then they took us to our apartment that Daina had arranged. It’s 75 Euro’s a night (about $103) but it’s very big. It is in a very old building in Riga. The inside has a mixture of wood flooring and carpeting. There are four bedrooms, a very large dining room, a very large living room, and a narrow but long kitchen. The ceilings are very high with the original molding/plaster work. It’s beautiful. One bedroom and the living room have balconies that overlook the street. We are located near quite a few embassies including the British Embassy. We’ve found an extremely small grocery store that is very close, but later today will venture into old Riga (I didn’t think it could get much older than where we are at) and try to find a Rimi grocery store, which is like Meijer or Super Walmart but bigger and nicer.
Yesterday Daina and her husband Edgars picked us up at 8:30am. We drove close to 2 hours to the orphanage, much of the trip was over dirt roads. The country is absolutely beautiful. We were greeted by Zenta, the orphanage director, but Sintija and Maigurs were not in sight. We were invited in for tea and cookies, and finally after some small talk Sintija and Maigurs were brought in. They had lost the healthy glow that they left America with. Someone had dyed Sintija’s hair a lighter color – almost a strawberry blond. Can you imagine dying a 13 year old girl’s hair? It had been layered as well. I’m not sure she is too happy with it. I wonder if they were trying to make her look more like our family by giving her lighter hair? We were welcomed with big hugs, a welcome sign and small gifts. The kids then took us on a tour of the orphanage. It is very old, and so in that sense it is very run down. However, it is clean and as well taken care of as it can be given their limited funds. We were introduced to everyone and greeted very warmly. I got the feeling that Sintija and Maigurs had told everyone about us. There were beautiful little children (under 7, and not yet old enough for school) in one of the buildings. Michael asked me if I felt drawn to any of them, and I answered that I was drawn to all of them. They were all beautiful, and it broke our hearts to think of them with no families. Some of them would grab us by the hand to show us things like where they slept. You could tell they were very excited to see parents from America.
Shortly after our tour we left for the orphan court. We had to go the orphan court that was in the town where Sintija and Maigurs used to live with their parents. It was another 2 hours away, in the opposite direction as Riga. The kids, Michael and I all signed the papers we needed to, and then we had tea with the four women from the orphan court. They had fruit, cookies, candy, coffee, tea, juice and water – quite the spread for such a rural area. Then it was about four hours in the car back to Riga. We stopped at Lido’s, a huge restaurant and tourist attraction that people from surrounding countries come to. It was very good.
Today we are relaxing. We walked to the Olympic training center, and the grocery store, then back to the apartment for lunch. We’ll head to Old Riga as soon as I finish typing this letter. After dinner this evening, we’ll head to the coffee shop that offers wireless internet for about $2 per hour, so we can send this letter to all of you. So far, it’s like our almost ten months away from each other has just melted away. We’ve picked up right where we left off last summer. Sintija and Maigurs were excited to look at all of the pictures I loaded onto the computer. They loved seeing everyone in the family and are excited to talk to Amanda and Isaac on Saturday via Skype on the computer. Amanda and Isaac will be able to see us but we don’t have a webcam for the computer at home so we won’t be able to see them.
Take care and keep us in your prayers.
Jeannine (& Michael too!)