Tricia, Margaret gave me an excellent list of children's phrases in Russian before we left. It might not be terribly helpful for the referral, but we used it a lot on the second trip. I think I still have it if you'd like for me to send it to you.

This is SO exciting. And the dog magazines you could even take with you into the orphanage. Kids her age love looking at pictures of animals. The kids in B&C's orphanage were fascinated with dogs, because the strays would pass by the orphanage fence.

Well you know I've never travelled to Russia, but I would have to have my iPod and gossip magazines :)

We tried to sleep, but that proved to be impossible. (On the trip back, we crashed in exhaustion)

So as far as going over: The iPod was definately the way to go. I found lots of free podcasts that I thought interesting. The Discovery channel and National Geographic have some pretty cool topics that you can "educate" yourself with. You can find them in iTunes and type in the keywords. We also watched a lot of movies on the laptop. (I purchased an extra battery. Once you get outside of the United States, it becomes very difficult to find a "public" electrical outlet.)

gossips mags... yes, another request i'll put in with my sister. she subscribes to a couple... good idea!

i'd like to take another book too... (i really should be studying russian like 24/7)

My iPod, Lost Season 1, 24 any season, maybe a book (can't remember what ones) and Kathou and I fought over a Vogue. But that was only on the 2 hour flight from Seoul to Khab and we both read it.

Oh, and if you learn any bit of Russian please make it the alphabet.