We were all packed up and ready to go when our ride showed up on Friday morning at 6:00 AM. We were at the airport by just before 7. We checked our bags in, which was a huge relief.. One bag was slightly overweight, but as Hilary said, the scale started at 0.6, so our bag was actually bang on :). We were incredibly blessed by the show of support from both of our families as well as my roommate from Bible School who is also in the process of trying to adopt from Ethiopia. It was great to feel that support from all who were there.
We boarded the plane just before 9:00, and were off, basically right on time. This flight was just a little hop skip and a jump compared to what lay ahead. Hilary and I both watched a movie on the flight till Toronto, and had no issues with the flight.
Then we waited. Our plane arrived at 12:30ish Toronto time, and our next flight wasn't until 6:50 PM. Hilary had a nap at some point during the wait, we ate lunch, and mentally prepared for the rest of the trip.
The flight from Toronto to Frankfurt was a little bumpy at many points during the trip but was relatively uneventful. One interesting thing about this flight was that the bathrooms were on a bottom level (and it was nice and cool there). There were lineups basically the entire flight for use of these bathrooms. The plane was quite hot as well, and it made it very difficult to get comfortable to get any sleep. Neither of us were able to get any real sleep on this flight, and it made us both a bit cranky, and ready to get off the plane.
There was no rest of the weary, as our next flight left a few hours later from Frankfurt. We were both a little frazzled as we navigated through the Frankfurt airport, which was a tad complicated.... In the end, we arrived at our gate 1.5 hours ahead of the next flight... Hilary had a nap on the benches once again, while I went out in search of some food. I got back to the gate, and it appeared that there was virtually no one left to get onto our flight... Something seemed a bit off, so I got online, and checked to make sure there had been no changes to our flights.... It turns out that they had changed the gate on us... We found this out just in time, as our boarding time was also the time I figured this out... So we ran off to find the gate where we were supposed to be. We must have been among the last few to board. Luckily, this flight was very empty. It allowed us to sleep stretched out a bit more on the plane, and both of us got some good sleep time in.
I'm not sure anything really prepared us for the chaos that was the Addis airport. We had made arrangements to be picked up, so at least we didn't worry about that at all until after we were through customs and purchasing a Visa. We spent about 1/2 an hour in the lineup to buy a travel visa, and then another 15 minutes to 1/2 hour in the lineup to hand over our entry card or whatever it is called. We had received this on the plane to fill out in preparation for this. Then we went and got our pile of luggage, and walked out in another 15 minutes or so... The lineup to put stuff through the customs scanner was fairly long and very chaotic... We were happy once we stepped out, but we did not see our ride... It took a while, and a few phone calls, and we figured out that there had been a small misunderstanding and that our driver was waiting down the path rather than in the terminal which is what I thought we had been told... When all was said and done, the driver was great, and soon we were checked in at the Guesthouse.
We unpacked only what we needed and got ready for bed, and zonked out.
Thanks for the update...I've been enjoying following your status updates on facebook! Happy Mother's Day, Hilary!!
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