In Guangzhou....thank the Lord.

Today was kind of a wasted day. We had an early afternoon flight from Nanchang to Guangzhou, where the American Consulate is. We will need to do a few things here in this city so that Rylie's U.S. visa can be issued before we leave.

I wasn't sure how her first flight would go. I had high hopes because she amazingly took a nap this morning before we left the hotel. Fortunately it was just an hour and 20 minute flight...and the results left me terrified of how the 14 hour flight home will be. Oh. My. Gosh. I have never seen a kid go so crazy. She was fine through takeoff....even waved goodbye to her hometown. Then all hell broke loose. For just about the entire flight, she had the tantrum of all tantrums. Screaming, kicking, arching, throwing her body around in every direction. Rush and I had to take turns pretty much completely restraining her so that she didn't hurt herself. Lucky for us, no one showed up to join us in our 3 seat row. I can't imagine how that would have gone. After making a lot of friends on the flight (not really....I think everyone hated us), we finally landed. We waited until everyone else was off the plane to try to get our stuff together, which meant we had to endure every single person walking by and giving ugly looks and muttering things under their breaths. It was lovely.

Rylie passed out about 2 minutes after we were picked up at the airport.

We had about an hour drive to the hotel. Guangzhou is a city of about 14 million....much bigger than I thought.

On the way to the hotel, our wonderful guide, Veronica, told us of another girl that used to be the local guide here. She is pregnant with her second child, and because of the one child policy, she is currently in hiding somewhere in the countryside until the birth. Veronica said there are community groups that monitor population and will turn you in for violation of the law. If you are caught, you can be taken to the hospital and forced to have an abortion. If you indeed have your child, you have to pay a huge fine to the government. If you do not pay the fine, your child is not issued a national ID card....which means no school, no healthcare, etc. She spoke of someone who's second child is 6 years old, and still has no ID card. The child is enrolled in a martial arts school since she cannot get into regular academic school without an ID card. We are told a lot of eye opening stories like this. It's unreal.

On a lighter note, I LOVE our hotel and the surrounding area. It is such a breath of fresh air after Nanchang. It doesn't smell like smoke everywhere and we actually feel like we can leave the hotel and walk around with lots to do. There are Americans all over the place with adopted babies. It's really cool to see! We are so thankful to be here.

We met up with another family from our Beijing group and had dinner. Their little girl is 3 1/2, also with a repaired cleft lip and cleft palate.

Rylie had a first taste of ice cream tonight. I think it was a hit!

Our itinerary changed a bit for tomorrow. We will have Rylie's medical exam and then a free afternoon. We are looking forward to exploring a bit!

No pictures today....sorry! I figured documenting a wild animal wasn't worth it! :)