Monday

Monday was a jam packed day. We had to take Grace for a medical exam, get the visa papers prepared, pickup the passport, pickup the medical exam, and have an interview at the US Embassy to get the visa. All that and we had to hope and pray that we could get the visa back early enough on Tuesday that we could make our flight home. If we couldn't fly on Tuesday we wouldn't be able to fly until the weekend.

The medical exam was pretty painless, then Grace and I and went back to the apartment to pack while Sarah went with Jasmina to do the paperwork and pickup the passport. There was some confusion as to who could pick up the passport, but it all got worked out. A special thanks to the social worker from Blace who took the 3+ hour bus ride to Belgrade early Monday morning to help get it all cleared.

In the afternoon we had our interview appointment for Grace's visa from the US Embassy. We were a little delayed from getting the passport, but there were only a handful of people at the Embassy when we got there. During the interview they asked when we were leaving Belgrade so we told them our situation and the workers graciously said they thought they could get it done by the end of the day. So we hung out for a little while in the waiting room and only a couple of hours after getting there we had Grace's visa and we could official depart for home!!

In the evening we meet with Vlado and he and I walked to the Police station, even though it started snowing, to terminate our temporary Belgrade address. On the way we walked across the alley from the President's offices their "White House", no fences no special bars, we could have walked over and touched the building. Next to that was the Mayor of Belgrades offices, which the workers were happily removing the snow from the sidewalks, as the Mayor's office is in charge of all the departments in Belgrade. The President still has plenty of snow in front of his offices. After leaving the police station we spotted the President's car driving down the major bullivard on his way home with only one escort car. In the five minutes it took us to walk from there to the President's offices we could already see all the workers making quick exits themselves.

That was our last day in Belgrade and now we are all packed up dressed and ready to head to the airport. It's still snowing but so far all the websites show that there are no delays. The next update will be after we make it back home and can introduce Grace to the rest of the bunch.

Bye Vlado

"Ciao, ciao" Serbia