Well, today was a relief in a lot of ways. We had a great time sightseeing and got all of the paperwork in order, so we’re finally ready to bring Olivia home! Here’s a synopsis of another “eventful” day in the life of the Williams family:
Olivia woke us like clockwork again this morning at 7AM. I guess the 9AM wakeup call the first morning was a tease. But we had a nice, leisurely breakfast and prepared to make the trip to the mountains. We were told of a gondola ski lift just outside of the city that would take us to the top of Sofia’s most famous mountain, Mt. Vitosha. However, as we arrived I knew something wasn’t quite right. No gondolas seemed to be heading up the mountain. Sally went inside to inquire about tickets to the top and I stayed with the car. We soon discovered that the lift was not operational today, and we would later hear that the owner of this and many other lifts and ski properties in Bulgaria is keeping them closed to boycott some governmental policies and effect legislative change. This, of course, makes the resort and hotel owners very angry, and doesn’t seem to have made much political headway, but he’s doing it, nonetheless…(Can you imagine the owner of Vail or Lake Tahoe’s ski lifts shutting them down to convince Congress to do something????)
Of course a little thing like non-operational ski gondolas couldn’t keep us from the top of the mountain. As luck would have it, a taxi driver overheard Sally’s conversation and offered to drive us to the top. When she told him we had a car already, he offered to lead us up the mountain for a cost of 10 Euro. We quickly accepted the offer and made our way to the top. Halfway up the mountain, he stopped and pointed at the road and told us to keep going straight…we could make it on our own from there. So the adventure continued and about 30 minutes later we found ourselves near the peak at a ski resort filled with children taking ski lessons. The scenery was beautiful, the air was chilly, and the resort employees were quite hospitable.
As we walked around, a very pleasant older gentleman came up to us and struck up a conversation. We discovered he was a ski instructor, had two boys, and studied abroad in Delaware for a time in his youth. Fifteen minutes after meeting him we found ourselves in a small ski rental shop that doubled as a coffee house drinking tea with this gentleman and talking with him and 3 other employees. We learned a great deal about the area and the ski industry, and after we finished our tea we began our preparations to leave. One of the employees, an older lady who slightly (very slightly) resembled Livi’s foster mother, had held Livi for a while and carried her outside. As we tried to pry Olivia away from the lady, she threw a huge fit and started screaming. It became apparent to us that Livi thought of this lady as her foster mother and didn’t want to leave. While this was a bit of a shock to our systems, it was actually quite encouraging to us. In our preparation to adopt we have found that orphans frequently have problems forming strong, lasting bonds and will often drift from relationship to relationship without intimate ties. This is a chronic problem with institutionalized children in general, and especially with children Orphaned from birth. But Olivia’s display at the Ski Lodge encouraged us that she will have a strong capacity for forming these lasting bonds, and this gives us lots of hope for her future. (Interesting side note – after spending about 30 minutes with these folks, the older gentleman gave me his business card and his e-mail address…he said we can now communicate once we get back to the states. Very friendly folks!)
We left the mountain, took plenty of pictures along the way, grabbed a bite to eat, and then headed to the U.S. Embassy. Within 10 minutes we had Livi’s passport and Visa and were off without any problems (a great relief to me since this was our last real barrier to taking her home). We then went to the adoption agency to complete the remaining paperwork and say our goodbyes. As I sat there preparing to leave, I realized that these 4 women each had integral roles in our ability to adopt our daughter, and despite our brief interactions with them, we will be eternally grateful to them for all of their hard work in making Olivia a part of our family. No words or gifts could ever indicate how much their work means to our family….
Tonight will be spent packing and then we leave bright and early for Vienna. From there we fly to D.C and then on to Raleigh-Durham. We should be at RDU by 7PM and hopefully we’ll be home before the kids are in bed. Please continue to pray for safe travels…we’ll update tomorrow as we are able.
Excellent.
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