Friday, May 11, 2007

Tomorrow is relative

Okay, I know it's past "tomorrow". :)

San Francisco was wonderful, as was the toxicology course that I took. I was a little unsure how good it would be since I don't have a background in toxicology, but it turned out to be perfect. Even better was the mini-vacation we got to have in the evenings. We went to pretty much all of the standard tourist destinations and we were able to have lunch and dinner together every day. We went to Chinatown Thursday for lunch and Fisherman's Wharf for dinner. We saw the resident sea lions (really loud and pretty stinky) and wandered the little shops, and then walked over to Ghirardelli Square and had a couple of sundaes. Yum!! Friday we got public transportation day passes which included the cable cars. We rode up and down the hills, hanging off of the side of the cable cars--really! It was so much fun!! If you're on the side of the cable car that passes the other cable cars you have to pay attention or you'll hit the other car when it passes by. We also saw the "Crookedest Street", walked out on the pier and watched people crabbing for their dinner (or maybe someone else's dinner), and took a spur-of-the-moment sunset bay cruise. We had figured out that we weren't going to be able to go to Alcatraz since there weren't any tour times that worked with my schedule. As we were wandering down Fisherman's Wharf on Friday evening, we passed a boat that was offering sunset bay cruises for $10/person. We figured we didn't have much to lose, so we did it. It was fantastic!! We went under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz. The pilot did a full audio commentary of everything we were passing, so although we didn't go on the island we did see the buildings up close. I'd definitely like to do an island tour at some point, but this was a great introduction. The pilot and boat we were on do fishing tours during the day and then the sunset cruise in the evening. I would highly recommend them for either one! Saturday morning before we left we went to Coit Tower and then wandered down Embarcadero to the large farmer's market, and I do mean large. Cooking demonstrations, free (chocolate!!) samples...it was great. I'm looking forward to visiting San Francisco again sometime.

In adoption news, our facilitator has all of our documents and all of them appear to be correct. Hooray! However, we are currently #90 in line. Let me explain that a little bit. The facilitators have set up a line outside the SDA for submissions. We are #90 in the line for submissions of US dossiers, which only occur on Mondays. Each Monday, the SDA accepts between 5-7 dossiers, which puts us at most likely submitting sometime in late July, early August. The current trend is about 3 months between submission and traveling, so the earliest we would currently be traveling is about November. There is a small chance that our facilitator would be able to swap places with another facilitator who does not have a dossier ready when it is his turn to submit, but that is a small chance and we don't really know how likely that is. Right now all we can do is wait. We're getting pretty good at that.

Oh, and we've joined a summer community band. Can't have any extra free time... ;)

3 comments:

his wife, their mama said...

Hi Mark and Courtney!

I just wanted to let you know that I check your blog everyday and I just love to read about your busy weekends, exciting trips, non-busy days (very few) and your genuine love of life! You're in my thoughts and prayers daily and I miss you both. I hope that, sooner than later, we'll be able to meet up again!

Tonya said...

November isn't so bad in UA:):):). It was actually unseasonably warm there last November. Can't wait to hear something about that dossier going in. Congrats on getting everything right on your documents. That's an accomplishment!

Sam Sylar said...

At least you have a number, it's a small step forward. However, I caution you about Winter travel in Ukraine. Contrary to Tonya, we were in Ukraine in the coldest Winter on record and suffered walking for an hour every day in minus 25 degree weather through the snow and ice!!! On the plus side though, you ought to be able to get some good bargains on Winter clothes right now