Day 7: Goodbye Nanning

This morning at the breakfast buffet at the hotel, Olivia found the biggest carrot I have seen and put it on her plate to eat.  I reminded her we didn't have a knife that would cut it, but she ate it anyway.  Heidi loves the dragon fruit and melons here but won't eat the rice congee or noodles at the hotel.  We were told those were some of her favorite foods, but our guide mentioned that because there is so much selection and variety at breakfast she stays away from her normal everyday foods.  I would imagine one could easily tire of rice and noodles around here. :)

Once everyone was done with breakfast we headed back up to our room to begin packing.  All our clothes that had been hand washed and hanging on the clothesline to dry weree finally dry and ready to pack.  The bell boy is suppsoed to be by to pick up all our checked in luggage by 2:00, we have to check out by 3:00 and then we head to the passport office at 4:00 to hopefully get Heidi's passport before we leave town.  There is a chance it won't be ready, but for domestic flights her red book (official adoption document) will work and the passport would have to be mailed to us in Guganzhou.

We spent some ttime this morning writing a thank you note to our guide, David.  He has been wonderful and we have really enjoyed our time here in Nanning with him.  I told him he has to have one of the best jobs ever--getting to watch one less orphan happen one orphan at a time!  He has such a heart for the fatherless and we have been blessed to spend this week with him.  Olivia has already said she is going to miss having him around.

We did get Heidi's passport right before heading to the airport this evening and made it to the airport with less than 45 minutes to spare!  Heidi did really well for her first airplane ride--she was nervous at take off and landing, but never cried.  She sat in the middle seat wih Olivia on one side and me on the other.  Brian sat in the row directly behind us and had the whole row of three seats to himself.  He tried to talk Olivia into sitting with him but she wanted to stay beside Heidi.  

It is almost 1:00 AM here now in Guangzhou.  We arrived a few hours ago, but have been busy unpacking again, finding dinner (we just ended up ordering room service tonight--it was almost $50 but I got a cheeseburger so it was well worth it to me!) and struggling to communicate with the guest services staff.  We had a crib in our room here, but that is too small for Heidi.  At our last hotel they brought us a playpen which worked well, but trying to explain playpen in another language using sign language of sorts was unsuccessful.  I asked for a larger bed for her and they finally ended up bringing in a 2nd crib....  We already have a list of questions/concerns to go through with our guide in the morning!  

By the way we found these in our hotel room--Brian said he saw them in our hotel in Nanning too but I must have missed them somehow.  

Tomorrow morning (well in 7 hours now) we will divide and conquer.  Brian is taking Heidi to her medical exam where she will be checked out by a doctor, have blood work drawn, etc while I take Olivia out to try to locate a grocery store to purchase some bread for sandwiches this week for lunches.   Hopefully this outing will be more successful than our mall attempt earlier this week. :)