Hi, this is Juergen writing. Amy is currently 'offline' as you might have guessed. People have been worried that there was no post for a few days. The reason is that Amy cannot get the internet to work in the new hotel. I just finally managed to reach her and will just give you some quick updates until she gets back online on Saturday:

To come to the core point: Sarah is much better already. Amy felt she got a wall of rejection before (the "wall of china") but now there is a big crack. Getting on the plane was hard as it was to be expected. Amy had this piece of paper that said in Chinese something like "I am not kidnapping this kid but have adopted it. She is still afraid and has to get used to me. I am not really a bad person ... ". She had to use this paper several times in the airport because people (and some security guys) came looking what was up with the screaming baby that screams in very clear chinese "I don't want this mommy ...". In the end a woman approached them that was really helpful. She talked to Sarah a lot and actually also got on the same plane. Sarah calmed down a lot and seemed to understand the first time what was happening.

When they got to Guangzhou, they were picked up by the local adoption guide (of our agency IAAP).
The place is a zoo right now. For those in Germany, it can be compared to the Hannover 'Cebit' fair. During that time the whole city is in 'emergency mode': All hotels are booked, you can't get a taxi, everything is 5 times as expensive ... It makes sense that IAAP normally doesn't let people travel at this time. Amy had to walk for two hours and saw hundreds of taxis go by and no one stopped. And no one seems to speak English there (Shanghai is bad enough). The city is totally Chinese. On top of it, the internet doesn't work in the room, which also means no emails, posts and no Skype phone calls. And she didn't manage to find an internet cafe in that area.

But during all this, Sarah has warmed up to her Mommy a lot. She already kind of accepted her grandma but now she is much more relaxed with Amy, she actually hugged and kissed her a few times. But she also swings back to the old state of fear and distance. I think it will take a few more days. At least I am very much relieved that Sarah has changed so fast. It will be exciting to see the real Sarah come out in the next few weeks.

Currently we are trying to get a German visa for Sarah as well. This will allow Sarah to be in Germany for a few months before Amy will take her to the U.S. to finish the American citizenship process. Otherwise they would have to immediately go on to Portland, USA and spend another week travelling, with jet lag, without any normalicy ... I hope and pray very much that we get the German visa.
Now it just so happens that a friend of mine from our church works directly for the German Foreign Policy Spokesman in the German government who happens to know the ambassador to China in Guangzhou very well. So he did send a letter to ask for expedited handling of our case (we need the visa in several hours instead of several days). This should really help. Thank God for connections :-)

Amy will be back online on Saturday. I am sure you will see the 'monster post' then with all that happened in between. Thanks for everyone who is supporting us.