Home, but missing Nikolas

What a trip! Sorry that we were not able to do more posting while we were in Bulgaria, but we will make to up for it now.

We were supposed to travel on April 17-24, but because of the volcano ash we had to postpone until April 24-May1. We were not taking any chances so we decided to fly in through the southern part of Europe. We left for Miami on Friday night. From Miami we flew to Rome and then on to Sofia. We arrived on Sunday afternoon, but our luggage did not. :( So we had to stop and fill out paperwork hoping that it would turn up in the next few days. We did not care about our clothes, but did care about all the stuff for Nikolas and the orphanage. Our translator met us at the airport. More on him later. So after exchanging some money and dropping another person off at their apartment we made it to our apartment. We loved our apartment. We had internet and space to move around. Could not have asked for more! (except maybe an alarm clock!) We had dinner at a great pub. It was a little cool, but we sat outside. Be prepared just about everyone in Bulgaria smokes...inside and out of restaurants. Donna cannot handle the smoke so we sat outside. When we got back we called the airport. They had one of our bags!! YAY! We could pick it up on Monday morning.

Day 1 of meeting Nikolas...Monday, April 26
Monday morning we got up very early. We had to be at the airport to pick up one piece of luggage before making the 7 hour drive to his orphanage..yes you read that right: 7 hours. We arrived at the orphanage around 1:00pm; it was early and got lucky with traffic. We had an opportunity to sit down and talk to the director. She is fabulous! We fell in love with her. We were able to ask any question that we wanted. She had notes from the caretakers that she read to us. She didn't know some of the answers to our questions so she went to get a caretaker to make sure that we had the right answers. After about 30 minutes she went to get Nikolas. She entered the room with him and just like that we were in love. She held his hand as she talked to him in Bulgarian. She explained that he had special guest. He came over to us very shy. We took his hand and started to talk to him. He looked up at us still not understanding how his life was about to change. We kept the interaction very simple. Holding his hand and looking into his eyes. One of the questions that we asked was if they told him that we were his mommy and daddy. The director told us no, but if we knew we wanted to continue with the adoption that it was ok to tell him. We said that we did. So right then and there she told Nikolas who we were. He smiled. He was very tired because it was past his nap time so we said goodbye to him. Our hotel was 40 minutes away from his village so we went down the road to a nature preserve until he got up from his nap. He got up around 4:00pm. The director again went to get him. We were able to be with him while he had a snack. He ate every bite!! Super steady and smiling and doing what would become his signature sound of happiness: a sudden little exhale. After he finished we were able to take over a playroom. We had a blast! We got on the floor and played with him - lots of ball and car rolling back and forth. We did a lot of hands on play. Blocks, play-doo, and drawing. There were some kids in the hallway that lead to the playroom. He heard them and we thought that he might want to go play with his friends, but what he did surprised and made us laugh. He went to the door and closed it so that no other kids could get in "our room." To put it simpify he melted out heart. We were allowed to stay until 7:00. It was hard to say goodbye, but we had a great day with him and knew we were going to see him tomorrow morning. They told him that we would be back tomorrow.
The world became a different place - there was another boy who knew we loved him and wanted more...
The hotel turned out to be really nice. Dinner at the hotel was awesome - we had a great conversation with our translator. The food was super yummy including what we guessed was whipped butter with caviar mixed in. An entire bottle of Bulgarian wine was 10 lev = $7.50 and it was yummy. We struggled to get on the internet - finally we went to the lobby and checked email and it was after midnight before we got to our room to wind down. And there was a LOT to wind down from!
Day 2 tomorrow with pictures....