Introducing...

Norah Victoria

Don't you just love the headless pictures? Sorry I had to cut my face off too - I'm just not patient enough to edit it any better :)

Well this day didn't go quite as expected although it was still a good day. We woke up and went to the Blini restaurant where the girl working was really annoyed when we asked for the English menu. It was pretty easy to order though, we just pointed at what we wanted and it was really good! I'm definitely going back there on my next trip.

Then we came back to the hotel to wait for Nadya and Vladimir to pick us up. We were headed to the baby home to pick up Norah for our photo session - passport pictures. Well, when Nadya came she said that Norah had a fever and we couldn't go to the baby home today or get the pictures taken. Soooo... we headed to the notary to get all of our paperwork signed and then we decided to stop by the baby home just in case they might let us in for a few minutes. They let us stay for 20 minutes which is better than nothing! We just stayed in the little hallway by her groupa's room and played on the couch. She was in a really good mood despite her fever. Then we had to say goodbye and I left a few things for her.

So then we had the rest of the day to find something to do so we decided to go to a monestary about 15 miles out of the city. It was very interesting and I'm glad we went. There is a natural spring there that is considered holy water and it never freezes and people bring empty jugs to take the water home. There are also these little houses that sit on the springs that you can go into and take a dip in the water. No thank you! It was about 10 degrees today and I wouldn't want to take my coat off let alone swim around in freezing water!

Then we headed back into town and went to a sourvenir shop and then to an Italian restaurant that was very good. I had a mushroom risotto that was awesome. After dinner we walked back to the hotel and said goodbye to Nadya and now we are just hanging out in the room. I'm pretty tired today - walking around the monestary outside in the cold really wore me out. Tomorrow we're off to Moscow in the morning to meet up with a friend from home that lives there. She was sweet enough to let us stay with her to save money on a hotel or apartment.

So this is my last post from Kaluga! See you tomorrow in Moscow!