Gas or no gas???

Ok ,that's what they ask me whenever I order water, carbonated or non? Funny to me.
We arrived on time, our flights were great. We flew Lufthansa and they were beyond friendly, and had wonderful service. Our layover was in Frankfurt, which was pretty cool. Upon arriving in St. Pete, our translator met us there, and we drove to the hotel/apartment to check in. Well, there was noone there, and this was after carrying our luggage up 4 flights of stairs. I knew it was a hole in the wall place on the outside, but the pictures showed that the rooms were nice online, and it had great reviews. Well none of that mattered because noone answered the door. So we went down the street to the Petro Palace to see if they had any rooms, this is where we originally wanted to stay, but it was all booked up. Well with our translator's help they said they would give us 2 rooms, so we took them. So far I am loving jet lag, I normally take hours to get to sleep, well recently anyways. But I was asleep by 10 and didn't wake till almost 8, we slept great. The hotel breakfast is very pricey so we walked to a little cafe down the street that people had recommended. Very local place, noone spole English. We ordered what looked like a cinammon roll and a pastry with pear. Well, we still do not know what the cinnamon roll looking thing was, but we can confirm, that it was not what we thought it was.
Our translator met us in the lobby and we went to the committee. This is where they give us the basic info. on Nahstya and give us permission to visit her. We were only to answer yes or no, which we did and we got permission, easy. We then drove to the orphanage which was great because there was little traffic which is unusual. Also it is unseasonably warm today, and not windy. The orphanage is North of "the city" in a very pretty rural place. Upon going in we went into the director's office and greeted everyone, everyone was very nice, and we saw Ekatrina the assistant director we had spent time with this summer. Then we were taken to the music room where they would bring Nahstya in to interact with us in front of the orphanage social worker. The social worker asked us several question that she felt that they would ask us in court, such as why we wanted to adopt when we already had children. How we would handle her disability. How our children felt about the adoption. But more than anything they all seemed more curious about us Americans, what does our beach look like, do we have farms with cows and horses? Upon us telling them that where we live is very warm and almost never snows our coordinator joked that she always wished she would be adopted, so she could go to a place like that!
They were surprised by how excited Nahstya was to see us and how comfortable she was with us. We had a great visit, we were contained to that one room. But Nahsta made up games for us to play, and her and Papa rough housed a bit. She also just wanted to cuddle a bit.
They spoke to us about her medical and family history in front of her, which made me uncomfortable, I didn't feel as if this should be discussed in front of her, but Gary took her to the other side of the room to play.
Basically they said she was born at 28 weeks which is what would have caused her CP. They said her record indicated that her mother never took her to the doctor, but that the doctor came to her house several times, and offer the opportunity for her to be treated for her disability but that her mother always refused. This could be true or untrue. Sadly there is no father known. I am so sorry to hear this for Anastasia that is a huge part of her that will always be missing. She has been in the orphanae almost 2 years, basically upon her mother's death in 2007. Her grandfather brought her to the orphanage and gave his permission for anyone to adopt her and he has never been to see her. So the visits she tells us about are all fantasy. This also is sad, but common in chidlren like this. We visited for several hours and will go back tomorrow, from about 10-1.
I will write more tomorrow about our day today after the orphanage, I am sleepy, which is a good thing.