July 2000

(The end... at last!)

                OK... I think I had left you in Moscow while Mommy was doing her best with the for-ma-li-ties..

                Well, days were all a bit alike, Mommy would lose her documents and then she would find them again (or Sophie would find them...), however, little by little she finally managed to get a little bit more of those famous documents everyday...

                For dinner, we used to go to Arbat Street when I was in a good mood and when the weather was nice, when it was raining we went to the hotel's restaurant... For lunch, Sophie and Mommy had found a very smart pizzeria where everything was awfully expensive but where they said that everything was very good and they could even drink fresh pink grapefruit juice !!!   And I discoverd pitta bread.... It is incredibly good! I can chew it for ages and it doesn't crumble, Woooww... It is like a dream !!!

                The day when we were supposed to leave for France came and went and we were still stuck in Moscow with a ton of documents still missing so Olga and Mommy tried to buy new tickets on Aeroflot (the tickets Mommy had bought were supposed to be exchangeable) but oh, surprise, all the flights on Aeroflot were booked until 2015 !!!  So Mommy had to buy VERY expensive tickets on Air France because, although Russia was very beautiful, Sophie and Mommy wanted to go back to France and as for me, I had crawled around our hotel room 10000 times and I had spit on every square inch of the fitted carpet....

             Eventually, after many difficulties, Sophie and Mommy succeeded in obtaining a visa for me so that I could enter France. (well, yes, I am still Russian, so I need a long term visa, otherwise I'd be an 'outlaw'! ) I won't be French before March or April 2001 if Mommy obtains the 'adoption plenière'...

             On July 29th we left the hotel Belgrade and we even took the playpen with us... Well, we had become good friends by then... We went through the Customs and the passports control without any problem...

In the plane, I was a very good baby, the air stewardesses were very nice to me, they even gave me some little toys and I had a small seat belt that could be hooked to Mommy's belt.

               And, between Sophie and Mommy their was an unoccupied seat... Sophie and Mommy were very happy about it because they are always carrying a ton of bits and pieces: feeding bottles, baby food, security blanket, little woolen jumper, pitta bread...

                After an uneventful 4 hour flight, we landed in Paris, Mommy put me in my stroller and I looked around me to see what France was like while Sophie and Mommy were busy with... Guess what... For-ma-li-ties...  I believe they really love that !!!

                But eventually they must have had their share of for-ma-li-ties, so we picked up our luggage and I met my Jean-Paul for the first time...

   But that is the beginning of another long story....