Day 26

Cherry juice. Mango soda. The richest ice cream, aside from gelato, you've ever tasted. The cherry juice tastes a bit like grape juice but the mango soda takes some getting used to. The ice cream tastes like it came from a very cold cow - it must be straight cream. Thank God for capitalism and Coca-Cola. I appreciate that I can ask for a Coke even though the waiter can't speak a bit of English. This morning, we visited Gela and shared a tasty treat, blew a few bubbles, read a book, colored for a minute, passed out the bananas we brought, and then went inside to the play room. She did very well, even though her brothers were a little crazy playing with the children of the American family we met. I was glad to see that Gela could handle the chaos and still have fun. After we were asked to bring Gela upstairs for lunch and then nap, we had our lunch and eventually found ourselves at the notary.

We learned that in order for you to drive anyone else’s' car, you have to have written permission and it must be notarized - which is done by a lawyer. Our reason for being there was to get the passport request document notarized for the girls. After that, Marsha took us to see Vicka. When we arrived, she was all ready for her passport photo and she asked for her "clips". She was hoping we had her clip-on ear rings but we couldn't find any in time (we fixed that later). She wore a pretty yellow top and skirt and had two white hair bows in her head. She was adorable! The boys and I hung out while the girls went for the photo (including one of the teachers). Jennifer learned that Vicka is very photogenic. She loves having her picture taken and enjoyed riding around in the car wearing her mamas' sun glasses. Reminds me of how Nick loves getting his picture taken, especially when he was little. The boys and I played with water guns until the girls returned about an hour later. I came up to see Vicka and she ran up to me for a hug and kiss! We took a picture of her pretty dress and told her something very important. We told her that she is our princess and that we would like to call her Princess Vicka and that the name for a princess is Sarah (literally, it's Hebrew for Princess). We weren't so sure on how she would respond but she liked the idea. So now we need to make sure we refer to her as Sarah Vicka now (that's the idea). Soon enough, she wanted to play and that meant taking off the dress. A few minutes later, we needed to leave. She walked us to the gate, gave everyone "loves", but when she gave me a kiss, she asked if I had shaved. So... next time Papa... shave! We both continued to wave good-bye until we were out of sight, only stopping to occasionally blow a kiss. Tomorrow we will be visiting both girls (Yeah!) but it's going to be hot! We still need to find more clothes, socks, underwear, and such but we have some already.