Today we finally met Lina.

We woke up pretty early this morning. It was hard to sleep knowing that today is the day we have been waiting for. Elona picked us up in a taxi and we drove up to Ukmerge (ook-mare-gare). Getting out of the nice old town district was interesting for us. The city is nice and clean. It looks well taken care of but the countryside is much more the image of post Soviet life I expected. Ukmerge was pretty run down. The orphanage looked to be one of the nicer buildings. It was clean and well taken care of. They house 99 children, mostly older kids. We were brought into what I believe is the social workers office and there Lina was waiting for us. She knew we had flown in on Saturday but that we wern't coming until Tuesday. This was a harder wait for her than we realized. She has been wanting a family for so long and didn't believe that it could happen. She tried to prepare as best she could. She had someone she knows help her with some basic English. She had a piece of paper with Lithuanian words followed by phonetically written English. It was very touching that she went to so much effort to try and make a good impression. In very short order we met her caregiver who is responsible for her and around 10 others, and the orphanage director, an older gentlemen in buisness attire, who was pretty serious but seemed nice. We had only been there for around 5-6 minutes when Lina and her caregiver got up and walked out. We were then informed that it was time for a tour. So we went up and saw Lina's room. Very small. Just enough room for the 3 small beds. She then came back with a coat on and a plastic grocery bag with, what very well may be, everything she owns. And we left. Total stop around 30 minutes. We piled back into the taxi and headed back to Vilnius. Elona (from the Family Law Center) is a wonderful lady. She is very kind and helpful. She translated for us all the way back. We learned a lot more about Lina and her history. The deal with the orphange is pretty much as we thought. Lina does not like it there and they don't care. The only person that she cares about and that cares about her is the social worker. She has given us the most realistic opinions about Lina. I think if I was stuck in that place where one overworked social worker is the only one who cares what you do I'd take off too. We got back to our flat and Elona translated more for us and then she left to go back to work. It was almost lunch time and Elona had asked what Lina would like for lunch. Lina said she would like pizza. She had a pizza once a few years ago and loved it. So we took her to lunch. We used our dictionaries and a lot of charades. I think Michele and Lina spent more time laughing at me than trying to understand what I was saying but we had fun. Then we went for a walk through old town and I determined that tomorrow we are buying Lina new shoes. Like most of the women here, high heels are the most common choice even on cobblestone streets. Needless to say, Lina's are in bad shape and must have been killing her feet. I explained that we are going to be doing a lot of walking and that she needed decent shoes. So tomorrow we are going to the Acropolis. I guess it is a big mall. What's worse than going to the mall? Going to a mall where everyone looks when you walk by and trying not to get that "what the heck are you looking at" look on my face. But I'm starting to get used to it and not noticing it as much. It helps now that Lina is here because she can call taxi's for us and help with a lot of things that our electronic translator doesn't have the words for. After we got home we opened up the lap top and showed her our itunes collection. She loves music. She spent the next hour just listening to our music and trying to find stuff she likes. Seems like the 2 Avril Lavinge songs Michele has are the big winners. We spent a bunch more time with the dictionaries and learned that Lina describes herself as independent and tidy. She is also very happy. She has been on the verge of tears several times. I know that she is putting her best foot forward. She is desperate for love and has dreamed of having a real family for a long time. Even when she was with her mother. So even though she is on her best behavior we can tell that she is a great girl. We asked if we could do a short hello video to post here but I think that is a bit too much right now. Maybe later. We miss you all. I'll write again tomorrow. KC