The people at our hotel were amazing!
From the very moment we arrived, we were greeted with open arms and an honest curiosity. Every member of the staff was patient, kind, and understanding. I don't think we encountered a single person who was rude or even acted like they might be having a less than perfect day.
We were greeted every morning as we stepped off the elevator by a porter. The porter we saw most often was Nitya and Cora Lakshmi was smitten! He delighted in making her giggle and every time we walked out of our room to the elevator, CL would exclaim "Hello Nitya!" before we could even get downstairs. The staff who covered the breakfast shift at the hotel café were no exception. Each one took the opportunity to greet us and learn a little of our story. Cora Lakshmi quickly became a celebrity at the Taj Palace and she loved every second of it! As soon as we discovered Cora Lakshmi's love of waffles and chocolate chip pancakes, one of the breakfast chefs would make a special one for her every morning. And the young lady who brought the muffins around always made sure that she had Jason's favorite. The waiters learned quickly to clear the table of all breakable things that could be in CL's reach, too!
Many of the staff asked questions about our story and were always delighted to hear our answers. We were approached by a couple of well-meaning curious guests as well. One man, in particular, was cautious but very inquisitive. We noticed that he would request a table a little closer to us every day. Eventually, he came up and wanted to know about our daughter's birth family and why we were taking care of an Indian child. Then he wanted to know the type of education we would give our daughter and other such probing questions. We answered as politely and respectfully as we felt we could. I honestly think curiosity was eating at him and he just had to know. He was also very kind about each encounter.
The duty manager who changed our room also took a particular interest in our family. She even took time out of her day to have tea with us. She wanted to know our story and to share some of her own. She was very kind to us and her personal attention was a hallmark of our stay there.
Rather than take the rest of our trip day-by-day, I'm going to condense the last week of our trip by subject. There was a lot we needed to get done on the final business end of this adoption and several of our days were spent taking care of that. These things were necessary to gain the US visa needed to bring Cora Lakshmi home.
The first order of business was to go to a medical appointment where Cora Lakshmi would be checked out by a doctor and then a TB skin test would be placed on her arm. This was a traumatic day for all three of us. CL was not impressed by the doctor, his cold stethoscope or his lack of goldfish crackers. Our girl is hella brave. She faces everything with a fierce determination to get through it. That doesn't mean she won't let you know when she is unhappy with the situation, though. She definitely made sure everyone in the building knew how she felt about that stinky TB test. And her Daddy was inches away from going into fierce protector mode. But she got through it. And we went back to the hotel. To add a little fun to the day, we decided to spend time at the pool.
Cora Lakshmi had never experienced a pool or swimming before, but she loved water. We were hoping that love would translate to the pool. After a few moments of "I don't know about this"....it did!
After the obligatory waiting time for the TB test we headed back to the medical building to have the test read. This time things were much easier. The lab tech looked at her arm, signed the paper, we picked up a packet downstairs and we were off to go shopping. The shopping trip was long for our darling and she was a little fussy, but we got it done and headed back to the hotel.
The next morning we headed out to have our Visa appointment at the US embassy. No pictures of this because they do not allow anything that has a battery into the building. The appointment went smoothly with a brief interview, a moment to make sure we had all the right documents, and instructions to return the next day. The next day, Cora Lakshmi was a bit overwhelmed from all of the activity over the past days. So I left Daddy and CL to play at the hotel and went to pick up the visa with our guide. I was able to zip through the line and up to a window fairly quickly. Our documents and visa packet were ready and in my hands within an hour of arriving. Then I was off to find some ankle chains! I found a great set at a small jewelry store and headed back to my loves.
Since all of the business was done, we had the next 2 days to play and pack before we headed back home with our new little US Citizen.
On our last breakfast morning, Cora Lakshmi's breakfast buddies gave her a proper send-off with lots of love, hugs, and pancakes!
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