And then there were three....

You may have noticed the precipitous drop off in my posting, which has nothing to do with Rose's transition and everything to do with the fact that Eddie flew home yesterday morning and I lost a very important set of hands. And Rose, who the orphanage director said was "so easy" and "very mild" is turning into someone who has figured out that these new blonde big people in her life will bow to her every command, and she's enjoying her newfound power. She doesn't even let us set her down for a second, which leaves me with no free hands for things like blogging on an iPad.

So yesterday. It seems like a zillion years ago when I found Eddie eating pudding in the bathroom at 4am while listening to the BYU basketball game, but I guess it really was just yesterday. Since then we left Nanjing, endured a plane ride where Rose did much better than the stinky loogey-hocking old guy who penned me and Annie in (even though we had tickets for the aisle seat), and landed in Guangzhou.

Eddie and I have likened Nanjing to Philadelphia. Both cities are near the coast but not on it, both are former capitals, and both are better known for being historical than for being cosmopolitan. Nanjing was cold and rainy and gray, and every time we took to the sidewalks, it felt like we were taking our lives in our hands. Cars, bikes and lots of electric scooters all played chicken with the pedestrians. We saw lots of car accidents, which wasn't a surprise since they seemed to have a Lord of the Flies approach to driving. And when you were watching for scooters, you had a great chance of accidentally stepping in pee or poo on the sidewalk. Annie ended up ankle-deep in a puddle one night and those shoes are going right in the trash. The hotel was attached to a fancy mall, and we spent way too much time there. It was just easier to navigate the mall than it was to face the crowds outside.

If Nanjing was a busy, dirty Philadelphia (with a kicking' metro and awesome trains) then Guangzhou is New Orleans.... If new Orleans had been swallowed by a Las Vegas on steroids. We stepped off the plane and into a heat and humidity anyone who has lived in the south recognizes. It felt just like Houston in March. We've traded our fleecy layers and umbrellas for t-shirts and flip flops (and coming out of the world's stuffiest Cantonese restaurant tonight we once again got chastised because our profusely sweaty babies were not wearing enough layers). People drive on the street, there aren't nearly as many bikes, and other than the beggars and the overflowing piles of raw meat at the grocery store, Annie hasn't seen anything that has her nervous like she was in Nanjing. It was our trial by fire-- or at least by rain.

The Garden is pretty much the nicest hotel I've ever stayed at. If you could just drink the water, you might even forget you were in China. Our room is not just fancy, it's FANCY. The bathroom has a remote control curtain opening up to the bedroom, plum blossom mosaic on the wall, and a shower room where the water shoots from the ceiling. We have room to spread out and our bed is total luxury. We are happy campers.

We spent this morning in the cattle call to get Rose's physical. Imagine about 100 adoptive families all maneuvering strollers, wheelchairs, and babies in and out of rooms. The facility is brand new, but they really needed to put an in door and an out door on the rooms where the lines back up 30 deep. It took about two hours to get her weighed, measured, and checked out. We braved a Chinese pharmacy to get some antifungal cream for Rose's neck (drooly baby + antibiotics = big mess on the neck) and then had our aforementioned grocery shopping experience. We tried to have dinner with the group, but Annie was tired and Rose would only consent to sit if she could hold onto all of my porcelain dishes, so we bowed out early and came home to a quesadilla. I think Annie thinks it was the best quesadilla she ever ate. In truth it was kind of bland and soggy, but hey, in China you take what you can get.

















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