Day 3 (It is day 3, right? I can see I may lose track soon.)

First off, thank you all so much for following along with us!

Today's agenda was to see the Forbidden City before leaving for Nanning. Our guide, Candy again did a fabulous job of herding our group down to the bus, down the street and into the largest swarm of humans in the largest man made series of structures I have ever seen. She's small, but she's mighty. Walking up, we get the standard harassment from the street vendors. We're now pros at looking ahead and moving along. Walking up to the giant wall that surrounds the place is a massive cluster of humans waiting their turn to pour in. Candy took care of everything and we poured on in, too. To say "impressive" doesn't come close. Again, I turn to my new fav description of sites in China "huge", or as Bernie Sanders would say "Heewdje". They built that massive thing, full of spectacular detail in 14 years using a million workers and 100k artisans. I wish they were in charge of our adoption, it might have gone faster. It was amazing. I'll try to post a video of the pack'o'people, which was a new peak for me as people watching junkie.

We went off to lunch. The mighty-but-small Candy worked and made sure we had a good table after ours was given away. She calmly, firmly stood her ground, reviewed the menus, and got us the right chairs. Have I mentioned that the way to travel is like this? With a guide and so well taken care of. We haven't stood in line for a ticket, had to think about where to go, what to order, what to see all lead by an at least 3rd generation Beijing local, bright, organized, happy guide. When a two year old is about to burst into my life, I'm so very happy that I don't have to think about any of this the days leading up to Alice. It's all just happening and I'm drifting along with the flow in a stupor of amazement. We've had a couple of things going slightly wrong, and each time, either a member of our group and/or Candy has cleared the way for more gleefully mindless China travels.

The rest of the afternoon was spent heading back to the heewdge Beijing airport. We got down to our Gate, boarded and off we flew to Nanning. This is where we meet Alice. Looking down from the plane, the land is green, very lush with many trails of water. After landing, we got out, felt the wave of tropical heat and headed for our bags and bus. It was about a 45 minute ride to our hotel. We have a second guide, along with Candy, in Nanning named Cindy. It's only one letter difference, and I can't seem to lock her name into my head. On the ride, once in the city, it's a series of open storefronts, for lack of a better term. Some have tired, some seem to have machines, maybe for welding or specialty drilling, food, etc. There are bikes, motor bikes, electric bikes some carrying families of four, zooming down the street in their own lane next to the cars. The lanes cross at times, and my strategy is to not watch. Otherwise I end up muttering ooh geez, or oh my as the bikes and the cars duke it out.

We were also told that we will meet our children tomorrow at 3:30 in the Civil Affairs Office. Our children will be packed up on their respective modes of travel and head toward us as we board to head to them around 3:00. I think we may meet some nannys, and I hope to meet Alice's foster family, but we won't know until tomorrow.

I'm having a beer on my last pre-Alice night. We went to the store across the street with Tom, Katie and Maryanne looking to stock up a bit for tomorrow. Again, friendly as ever in the store. I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Bring on tomorrow. (Am I supposed to be able to sleep tonight?)

(Hi Seth and Jimbo! Love and miss my boys. :-)

PS - When I'm sleepy and about to have a baby, I seem to lose my ability to spell and my motivation to fix it.