So a lot has happened in the last 6 months since we've been to Addis. Lots of delays mostly -- now that I'm back in Addis to pick up Gezeghan and staying at the orphanage's guest house many of the families here are comparing notes on their process. They're all lamenting having had a December or January court date and are only now in mid April having their Embassy visit. Little do they know that for us it's been since October!
Getting here was not too bad. I really like Ethiopian Airlines - nice big planes, it's clean, the food's not bad and the flight here is direct from DC. I left early Friday morning (the 6th) from Grand Junction, and flew to Denver and then Washington. The flight to Addis wasn't until saturday morning so Ethiopian put me up in a hotel outside Dulles - definitely a highway and mall wasteland. Can't really walk anywhere and I had to do something active so I ended up jumping rope for 25 minutes in my hotel room (I know that seems weird but it worked out great).
Met Chrissy at Dulles without incident -- her connecting flight out of Chicago got in just fine.
Then it was on the plane for......I forget how long. I watched 2 or 3 movies (I liked The Descendents but the new Sherlock Holmes was awful) and tried to sleep but even with benadryl, could not seem to knock off fully.
Then mercifully off the plane and into a very long line waiting for our visa -- which took about 2 hours of shuffling through the line. Then finally out into the terminal to meet our driver....except no driver in the terminal. But I had read that some of them were having trouble getting into the terminal and that you might have to meet them on the ramp. So out on the ramp we went and paced it for the better part of an hour. We had no phone number to call (my fault) but didn't have a functioning phone to call from anyway. Thankfully a helpful worker from an Italian adoption agency made some calls while driving us to their hotel, found our driver (he had picked up one family but didn't know there was a second to get from our flight so he just left) who finally came to pick us up.
By this point, Chrissy and I were pretty brain dead and formulating a plan seemed like a herculean task, but we managed to do it -- we walked up to the market to get a few things since lunch was soon and being Sunday we were on our own at the guest house. We stopped at the orphanage to see when the kids would nap but we eneded up seeing Gezeghan right away -- he remembered me and clamped his arms around my neck in a death-grip hug where he didn't really let go for about half an hour. I was relieved that he recognized me, and astounded how quietly he could sit there and look at me...then look at Chrissy....then look at me...then at Chrissy....then back to hug.
Hopefully he will be this agreeable on the airplane ride home (hah!)
Anyway, for now the guest house computer is working so I may be able to update regularly on this and even upload a few pictures
More later
Getting here was not too bad. I really like Ethiopian Airlines - nice big planes, it's clean, the food's not bad and the flight here is direct from DC. I left early Friday morning (the 6th) from Grand Junction, and flew to Denver and then Washington. The flight to Addis wasn't until saturday morning so Ethiopian put me up in a hotel outside Dulles - definitely a highway and mall wasteland. Can't really walk anywhere and I had to do something active so I ended up jumping rope for 25 minutes in my hotel room (I know that seems weird but it worked out great).
Met Chrissy at Dulles without incident -- her connecting flight out of Chicago got in just fine.
Then it was on the plane for......I forget how long. I watched 2 or 3 movies (I liked The Descendents but the new Sherlock Holmes was awful) and tried to sleep but even with benadryl, could not seem to knock off fully.
Then mercifully off the plane and into a very long line waiting for our visa -- which took about 2 hours of shuffling through the line. Then finally out into the terminal to meet our driver....except no driver in the terminal. But I had read that some of them were having trouble getting into the terminal and that you might have to meet them on the ramp. So out on the ramp we went and paced it for the better part of an hour. We had no phone number to call (my fault) but didn't have a functioning phone to call from anyway. Thankfully a helpful worker from an Italian adoption agency made some calls while driving us to their hotel, found our driver (he had picked up one family but didn't know there was a second to get from our flight so he just left) who finally came to pick us up.
By this point, Chrissy and I were pretty brain dead and formulating a plan seemed like a herculean task, but we managed to do it -- we walked up to the market to get a few things since lunch was soon and being Sunday we were on our own at the guest house. We stopped at the orphanage to see when the kids would nap but we eneded up seeing Gezeghan right away -- he remembered me and clamped his arms around my neck in a death-grip hug where he didn't really let go for about half an hour. I was relieved that he recognized me, and astounded how quietly he could sit there and look at me...then look at Chrissy....then look at me...then at Chrissy....then back to hug.
Hopefully he will be this agreeable on the airplane ride home (hah!)
Anyway, for now the guest house computer is working so I may be able to update regularly on this and even upload a few pictures
More later
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