Seeing the Sights

Amazingly enough, Olivia slept until almost 9am this morning. Because of this, Olivia is currently our favorite child:) We enjoyed another hearty breakfast at the hotel and decided to venture out into the city.

We had heard that there was a free 2 hour English-guided tour of Sofia starting at 11am. Sure enough, a small crowd had gathered for the tour. Our guide, Kiril, is in his final year at Sofia University, studying Balkan language and history. His thorough walking tour of Sofia was fantastic and gave us great insight into the history of our daughter’s country of birth. Olivia tolerated the tour with minimal fuss. She was very cold, but as long as we fed her a snack and carried her she was alright.

Upon returning to the hotel, we grabbed a late lunch and settled in for the afternoon. We tried to give Olivia her first bubble bath, but she was having none of that. Even with the bubbles, she was not happy about getting a bath. She was pretty tired after her bath experience, and was close to falling asleep when our room phone rang. Our translator Svetla had called with great news. Olivia’s passport was ready, and we had an appointment to visit the Dr. tomorrow morning. We have an appointment at 11am and then will find out what the next steps will entail. We are hoping to get the passport and head to the US Embassy to apply for the visa. But, it seems that the adoption agency has a plan of their own in mind and it doesn’t always mesh with our wishes. The European timeline is not always of the essence. Urgency is not one of their strong qualities. But so far things are going smoothly, so we praise the Lord for that.

After receiving that great news, I got a quick nap while Jason and Olivia went down to the gym. Olivia woke me upon their return and we enjoyed time together in the room. Many have asked how is Olivia, what is she like, how is she behaving, etc. Her gross and fine motor skills are right on target with a child her age. She’s able to color, use stickers, and turn pages in a book. After returning from the pool yesterday, she was running around only in her underwear. A few minutes later, I turned around and saw that she had completely dressed herself….shirt, pants and socks. Pretty good, I must say! She walks and runs with a purpose, more often than not swinging her arm back and forth and moving with a slight “strut” (much like her daddy!). However, she has learned that saying “up, please” gets her a ride in mommy or daddy’s arms. Her temperament is much like that of any 3 year old. She tries to back talk us (in Bulgarian, of course), but we’re trying to scold her for that. We keep reminding her that we’ve done this 4 times before and nothing surprises us anymore.

All in all, it was a nice day. The weather was cold, but clear. And it was nice to be out in the fresh air for a while. Hopefully we’ll retain the information that we learned about Bulgaria. If not, there’s always the internet!