Day Three

We landed in Amsterdam exhausted after flying for ten and a half hours...plus two hours before that with layovers. I made my first mistake on this trip!!! Casey went through passport control first. When I went through I did not see him waiting for me. Panic set in as I looked everywhere and did not see him in the busy baggage retrieval area.

I began to walk around searching for him and thinking how I was going to tell Duane that our boy was missing!!! My heart was pounding as I walked around. So many people and the door to the outside world was just right there and accessible. Although, I could not imagine how someone could get Casey to willingly go outside. Of course, there are lots of scam artists in this world and lots of ways even adults are abducted and killed. So, that demon went through my mind as I searched.

Just as I was getting ready to cry I spotted him talking to a woman across the hall. I immediately went to retrieve him and he saw the look on my face as I approached. He began to explain that this lady needed some help getting her baggage. I just patted his back and told him to come over to get our bags. Boy did I give him a piece of my mind when I got him aside!!! I told him that he could not trust anyone and not to do that again or he would never travel with me again. He was very apologetic and assured me it would never happen again. I thought to myself..."Right, buddy, cause I'm going through first from now on."

Once I collected my mind and our luggage we went outside to wait for the Hotel bus. It was 9:30am and our bodies felt like it was bedtime. We saw a McDonald's on our way to the Hotel and decided we would get a cheeseburger. The man at the counter looked at us very oddly as it was breakfast time for them;-). We left our luggage at the Hotel as our room would not be ready for about thirty minutes. So, this was the perfect time to get some food. When we returned we went straight to our room and took a bath.

Naturally, Casey and I wanted to go to bed!!! However, I knew this would do nothing to get us adjusted for "Vika" time. It was around 11:00am when we got into our beds. I was thinking that time seemed to be slowly moving by at a snail's pace. Then Casey said; "Mom, does time seem to be passing unusually slow?" That just cracked me up laughing and I told him that I had that exact thought only moments ago. He began to flip through TV and found news in English. We watched for about an hour and then he found animal planet in English.

It was so hard to stay awake, however, we managed it for another hour....about 1:00pm. Then I told Casey we should take a two hour nap. I called for a wake-up call at 3:00pm. I looked over at him and he was almost immediately sleeping like a little lamb;-). I also fell asleep quickly with visions of Vika dancing in my head!!!

It was so difficult to wake up at 3:00, but we managed and got dressed for some dinner. We went downstairs and ate wonderful lasagna. It was delicious!!! It was so easy to get back into bed and fall asleep very early that evening. This helped immensely with our adjustment to the time difference. Early the next morning we were off to Moscow and Vika!!!