Looking Back: Traveling to Ethiopia

So you all have probably noticed that we have yet to blog about our experiences in Ethiopia. Honestly, the trip was very intense and I think that we have just been slowly processing everything we saw and experienced. Now that we've been home for a little over a month, I think we're ready to start chronicling our trip. So keep your eye out for posts about different aspects of our journey!

Today, we'll start with traveling to Ethiopia. Boy, was that an experience! We started off bright and early, waking up at 3:30am on June 28th in order to make our 6:30am flight out of NC. Well, everything seemed to be going really smoothly. The taxi came 30 minutes early, we finished packing in time (that was tough! You don't realize how hard it is to pack for a month long stay in a country you've never visited where you are about to take custody of your first child until you start!), and we got to the airport exactly as planned. Immediately we were told that our flight was delayed to Dulles which meant we would miss our scheduled flight to Addis Ababa. We were devastated! We then tried to call our travel agency who'd helped book our flights to figure out what to do, but even their "emergency" number went to voicemail (which, honestly, doesn't make sense to me - what's the point of an emergency number if no one answers it??). After much calling of airlines, we learend that Ethiopian Air only has one flight out of Dulles a day and that the flight for the next day was already booked - argh! United ended up flying us to Dulles anyway, where we then waited for 4-1/2 hours (that's right, 4-1/2 hours!!!) in line to speak to someone about the mess that they had put us in (I kid you not, at some points EVERY person working the United counter went on lunch break, leaving dozens of us in line with no one helping). After speaking with 3 managers, they ended up putting us on a United flight to Frankfurt, Germany, where we would then hook up with a plane to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Let me tell you, our talks with the managers were filled with many a nervous tear and a bit of yelling - we knew we had to make it to Ethiopia on Wednesday so we could meet Truman before court on Thursday because otherwise there was a possibility our court date would have to be rescheduled and we were NOT about to let that happen). We were a bit nervous because it started to rain in Dulles and we were worried our flight to Germany would be delayed, causing us to miss our flight to Ethiopia - but we had no other options, so we then sprinted to catch the flight to Germany which was leaving in less than 2 hours. (I want to note that before leaving the counter, we were assured that our bags would travel with us - Alison was very wary, but the man repeatedly promised they would make it there with us).

Well, we ended up making our flight to Germany with no issues and then had a few hour layover until leaving for Ethiopia. It is so hard to accurately describe the wide range of emotions we felt throughout the flights. Shea and I repeatedly would just stop and smile at each other. We were both filled with an intense nervous excitement - we just couldn't wait to finally meet our son! We kept his picture out throughout all our flights and just kept staring at his beautiful face, not fully believing that within hours we would get to see this boy whose picture we had been staring at for months!

Our "stay" in Germany went fine. We ate at McCafe - that's right, McDonald's serves bagels and chocolate croissants in Germany! I wish our McDonald's served those here - then we might actually eat there! As we prepared to board our flight to Addis we were overcome with happiness! Only 7 more hours of air flight left! Here's us being really excited:

And here's Shea happily holding our tickets to Ethiopia:


Then our Lufthansa flight began. It started off pretty smoothly. Do you all know those monitors where you can watch the map of your plane flying? Well, I was watching mine when I noticed that our plane started turning around. Shea had briefly fallen asleep so I began tapping him on the shoulder and said "Umm...what's going on?" We stared in confusion at the screen for a few minutes before the captain began making an announcement in German. From his pauses, tone, and the length of the message, we figured something was not right. Soon, he repeated the message in English, and we learned that one of the computers used for landing had broken. Because Addis is at such a high altitude, they determined that it would be safer to land in Germany without the equipment. Therefore, already 2 hours into our journey, we were turning around and going back to Germany, where we would have to switch planes. We were, once again, devastated. One more obstacle between us and our son. The switch ended up adding about 5 hours onto our trip. And believe me, if you are already about 24 hours in, you don't want to add on any more time.

After the switching of planes (including baggage, food, and people!), no other problems occurred. We landed in Ethiopia at about midnight their time (which meant a total travel time of 36 hours for us). At this point, we were very, very, VERY exhausted and dehydrated, and suffering from changes in altitude, but also very, very, VERY excited! We got our entry visa, exchanged currency, went through customs, and then went to wait for our bags and look for a representative from our agency (who was supposed to be waiting for us). Surprise, surprise, our bags did not make it with us. Then, to top it off, no one from our agency was there. We filed a claim for our bags and then went to search for a pay phone to call someone with. We discovered that all of the pay phones had been shut off for the night. We wandered about aimlessly and distraught among huge crowds of people. We both felt dizzy and overwhelmed. Luckily, a nice man could see the sad state we were in and offered to let us use his cell phone. We ended up calling our representative, who quickly sent WACAP's driver to pick us up (thank you, Mesfin!). At about 1:00am we arrived at our hotel and immediately passed out on our bed.

So yeah, overall, not a great start to our trip! But the whole time we just kept thinking, "We are about to meet our son!" and that helped us get through it!