A flock of seagulls ... err, pigeons?

Today was a good day. Got some things done and found out we will be picking up Baby Boy on Friday instead of Saturday. We had lunch at Mick's Patio at 1:00, the busy time. There was a bit of a line but it went through pretty quick. We were surprised as it hadn't been that busy before. We then walked around some and took a few pictures of some of the tulips blooming.

We then did some wandering in search of cheesecake. The place next to the hotel didn't have the yummy souffle cheesecake so we went in search for more. We found a few pastry shops but no cheesecake. At one pastry shop we tried a few things. Heather got a cookie with pink icing, not lots of flavor but cheap. I got a 'whipped cream taco pancake', at least that is my name for it. I don't know what it was, but it looks like a small pancake folded up like a taco, with Cool Whip on the inside and chocolate shavings. It was really good, too. We both liked it until we found the surprise inside. At the bottom of the pancake taco, under the Cool Whip stuff, was something like a date. We're not sure as we don't eat dates, but we spit our 'dates' out. The rest of it was good, though, and also cheap. Maybe we need to go back for more.

We walked a little further and stopped at a coffee place called Traveler's Coffee. It was like a cross between a Starbucks and a cafe in that it served food also (plus desserts). I tried a cappucino and Heather got an orange smoothie, but their menu had food that we wanted to go back and try. We actually went back and had chicken quesadillas there for dinner (along with a very good slice of vanilla cheesecake). After dinner we went into a building that we had passed several times that looked like it might have stores in it. It looked like an office building that was turned into merchant areas, similar to others where it wasn't originally built with shops in mind. Very different. We might go back to see what else they have as it was getting to be closing time.

One neat thing, though, was that I bought something and had to get lots of 10 ruble coins in change. I found out that these were special coins as the 10 ruble is normally a paper note. These 10 ruble coins were like our President dollars in that each coin had one side with a picture related to each region in Russia. Kind of neat, but I won't be keeping all of these coins.

One funny thing while walking ... there are pigeons all over the city. Normally not too many in one area, although they are used to people. While walking in the afternoon we passed a little area where there were lots of pigeons. I guess they are used to people feeding them there. I knelt down to take a picture of them and they started rushing to me like they expected me to feed them. I took a quick picture and we quickly walked away.

We talked with our translator and found out we will be going to the orphanage at the end of the day on Friday. We have to wait until the official decree that the 10 day wait is over, which won't be until the afternoon. We will get to see where Baby Boy has been sleeping for his time spent there (probably a crib-filled room) and who knows what else we might see. We have a few more days to get things done until our tame is busy, but it will be worth it. We can't wait to get him and show people pictures of him.  Here are a few teasers from Monday.