Our Home Away from Home

Since there is really nothing new happening here, we thought we’d take this opportunity to take you on a little tour of our luxury accommodations. This is what 600 sq feet looks like in our neck of the woods. Please note, the pictures do this apartment a favour, it really isn't this nice! We have spared you pictures of the peeling vinyl tile floors, stained carpets, etc. But anyhow...

First, the living room. Notice the lovely view of both laundry facilities. To the left, our deluxe, three string clothes line that only Rod can reach (and no, Tammy didn’t arrange for that before we moved in, it’s just a perk). To the right our super small, drains into the tub washing machine in the bathroom.

Did you notice the fancy duct tape artwork on the windows? There are no screens on the windows of the closed in balcony, so we had to improvise. Now on to the main hall, at the end of the hall (which isn’t nearly as long as it appears) you will see two doors at the end. The open door on the left is the bathroom with a tub, sink and the washing machine. Door number two is the other part of the bathroom, complete with silver Christmas tinsel decorating the water pipes.

Off of the main hall is the bedroom with a box that is supposed to resemble a bed and a crib. Notice the white square on the wall just above the left side of the crib. That would be the light switch. We can only imagine what would happen if we left the crib there once M is here with us. With his sense of humour, we can definitely see some light shows in the middle of the night. What better way than to wake your parents than to flip the lights on and off?

Lastly, off to the kitchen. We definitely won’t get any exercise in this room, as everything is basically within arms reach. And don’t you just love the fridge? It speaks for itself.

Other than that, we’re still doing fine. M has learned how to “Gimme 5” and impressed one of the very important Baby House officials with his new talent. We can’t remember her name, but she has the longest title we’ve ever seen. She reminds us of an Asian version of Christine, (Tammy’s former director) and her title is “The Representative of the Body of Guardianship and Trusteeship”. No, we don’t really know what her job is but she seems impressed with us so far and yes, we need to read her title in our court speech. Good thing we get to read it from our prepared script! By the way, Tammy lost the coin toss on this one, so it’s up to her not to screw it up.

Tomorrow we are venturing out to a Turkish restaurant called Doner with some of the other adoptive families we have gotten to know here. We will also say a sad farewell to our translator, who has been absolutely wonderful. It will be hard to see her go, but she is off to the USA to work and travel. We don’t know who our next translator will be, but we’re getting along quite well at the baby house and have a pretty good routine. We seem to be able to communicate everything we need to so far with the caregivers and if we got into a bind, we would either borrow another translator that can speak a bit of English, or our driver who we’re sure would give us a hand if there was a communication emergency. There are usually two or three translators around each day, but each one specializes in a different language, (English, German and Spanish) but it seems that all of them know at least a little bit of English.

Well, that’s all from the flip side. Hope you enjoyed your tour. Please watch your step as you exit the vehicle. Souvenirs are available at the gift shop. Please visit us again soon.