The Amazing Race

have you seen the tv show? we love it. I think it fulfills both our love of travel and our love of adventure.

sometimes the little boy in me gets the better of me and surfaces in funny ways... like yesterday.

We're still in the process of applying for temporary residency here in Russia (it's like a 3 year green card). The process is riddled with bureaucratic requirements, stamps, photos, heath checks, etc. So we've already been through one full round of interviews, but our application was rejected because our last name was spelled wrong on our medical certificate (we didn't spell it wrong).

Yesterday we met our friend who is lending us her penmanship on our application materials as we want to ensure everything is VERY legible (she's a Russian teacher by trade). We met her at approximately 8:30 in order to make the 9am deadline to turn in our folders...

She had a few questions on how to spell items on our application, which we promptly answered.

Then the AMAZING RACE began. We were about 15 minutes from the Migration Service's offices and we had only about 10 minutes to get there. Amy looked at me with a glint in her eye and said, "let's run!"

Now, Amy ran cross country in college. So this statement should have been something like, "how 'bout I run and drag my sorry husband along." I did okay, and we made it to the office on time.

There were maybe 40 people there to hand in paperwork. As Amy checked the door for the name of the woman we had previously interviewed with, I pushed through the press to turn in our folders with all of the other potential migrants.

Then we waited.

We feel a bit more calm and professional about the procedure now, because we've been there 2 times before for this process.

So we waited.

We expected at least an hour, because we were called after 50 minutes the last time, but, no. We were the FIRST names called! Our next interview is on Thursday this week!

Please PRAY that our paperwork will ALL be accepted.