A day of meetings!

Today was a day of meetings. We left the hotel to apply for Sarah's Vietnamese passport. Our Holt guide was unable to accompany us, but told us to meet him there at 9:00a.m. We gave the taxi driver the address and he seemed to drop us off in the middle of nowhere and pointed us down a long seedy looking alley. Hesitantly we walked down the alley and tried to show a few locals the address we were looking for and they all pointed us down the alley into a shabby looking building. We went in and it seemed to be a passport issuing agency but there were no signs in English and our guide was MIA. Finally we saw James and Adreanna the couple who are adopting the little boy named Vu. We were reassured in seeing them that we were in the right place. But no Holt Guide! Finally at 9:30 Trung our Holt guide arrived and began going through the passport paperwork. He had assured us yesterday that he had all the paperwork we needed to we need not bring any. Thankfully we did bring it, because he was missing some crucial pieces. Meanwhile, Sarah needs to De Dia! (potty) in a bad way. The bathroom was about the worst I have ever seen. Needless to say I held her several feet above the toilet so that neither of us would have to touch anything. (There is not enough hand sanitizer in the world for that place.)YUCK!

After that fun adventure, we came back to the hotel to wash up, relax and kick back for a while. Then later we had to meet Trung again at the U.S. Embassy. (We made bets to how late he would be for this appointment.) But, fortunatly he arrived shortly after we did. The U.S. Embassy was not what we expected. It was just an office in a run down office building. The visa interview was not what we had expected. either. We were sent to a small office where we were seperated from the interviewer by a plate glass window and a small pass through to give the needed documents through. The interview went well and again we were thankful that we didn't listen to our Holt guide and we brough along with us our copies of all the documentation. As it turned out, they were missing some crucial pieces we needed to process her immigration visa.

We had asked several people for food recommendations and were unsuccessful at getting our requests made known. So when we got back to the hotel we surfed the internet and found a few good recommendations. One of the places was a buffet in a nice hotel across town. We were hungry so we headed out for an early dinner. Unfortunatly for us we arrived an hour and a half before they opened. So, we went for a long walk. Along the way we saw the most unusual cafe. (There is a picture of Dave and Sarah standing outside there.) No, we didn't eat there! They were serving dog. (In the tank you will see the poor pickeled pooch!)

As it turned out we had a lovely dinner at the hotel's buffet. They were serving mexican food tonight. It was no Mazatlan Grill, but was just what we wanted. (No dog!) As usual, Sarah made friends with all the waitstaff. She has a cunning way of charming them with her cute smile and then gets them to bring her a variety of foods that we haven't ordered for her. I wonder if she is saying in Vietnamese " Help! Save me from my dumb Amercian parents that can't get me what I want!" It is a difficult dissadvantage to be the only ones that don't know what your child wants. But, we are making steps (baby steps) at getting to know our little one.