Chapter 1: Where are J & E now? -- Wherein our travellers learn the meaning of "false start" and make no progress at all.
[J]
It's now almost three in the morning. Technically, we've now been gone for about 8 hours, and where are we? Are we winging our way across oceans and polar ice caps? No. We are still in Chicago! Our plane from Chicago to Los Angeles (originally scheduled to leave at about 9:30pm) was delayed several times, and then, at 11:30pm, they told us the flight was postponed until tomorrow (today... Wednesday) at 9am. We were told that the pilot had quit... walked off... gone to a hotel because he was tired. We're not sure of the details, but it was... disappointing.
So we had to spend hours (literally) on the phone with several different people from American Airlines... and we woke up Todd, the travel agent, in the middle of the night. (Sorry.) And our credit cards wouldn't work in the phone... and of course we didn't bring a cell phone... and we ran out of quarters... and every kiosk and store in the airport was closed, since it was 1:00AM... it was a comedy of errors, with very little comedy. Picture E. sitting on the floor of the airport crying... very sad.
Anyway, the problem was that this changed the whole schedule so that we could not get to Danang on Friday to meet TM. And one of our main goals was to arrive a few days early so that we could meet TM and his foster parents before the "giving and receiving" ceremony, to ease the transition (we hope). Now it was looking as if this would not happen. Hence the crumpled and weeping form of E. slumped on the carpet at O'Hare.
But all was not lost. After much diligent phone work, we totally rearranged the travel. NOW... we will fly from Chicago to Tokyo, Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City, spend a night in HCMC, and then fly to Danang early Friday morning. We are hoping and praying that we can get there in time to still meet Thanh Minh on Friday. (Feel free to pray along with us.)
In the meantime, the kids back home have been instructed to use a dry erase (not permanent!) marker to trace our travels on the world map in the hallway.
Now I shall lie down in our cheapo motel a few miles from our home... the very home from which we set off so many hours ago.
It's now almost three in the morning. Technically, we've now been gone for about 8 hours, and where are we? Are we winging our way across oceans and polar ice caps? No. We are still in Chicago! Our plane from Chicago to Los Angeles (originally scheduled to leave at about 9:30pm) was delayed several times, and then, at 11:30pm, they told us the flight was postponed until tomorrow (today... Wednesday) at 9am. We were told that the pilot had quit... walked off... gone to a hotel because he was tired. We're not sure of the details, but it was... disappointing.
So we had to spend hours (literally) on the phone with several different people from American Airlines... and we woke up Todd, the travel agent, in the middle of the night. (Sorry.) And our credit cards wouldn't work in the phone... and of course we didn't bring a cell phone... and we ran out of quarters... and every kiosk and store in the airport was closed, since it was 1:00AM... it was a comedy of errors, with very little comedy. Picture E. sitting on the floor of the airport crying... very sad.
Anyway, the problem was that this changed the whole schedule so that we could not get to Danang on Friday to meet TM. And one of our main goals was to arrive a few days early so that we could meet TM and his foster parents before the "giving and receiving" ceremony, to ease the transition (we hope). Now it was looking as if this would not happen. Hence the crumpled and weeping form of E. slumped on the carpet at O'Hare.
But all was not lost. After much diligent phone work, we totally rearranged the travel. NOW... we will fly from Chicago to Tokyo, Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City, spend a night in HCMC, and then fly to Danang early Friday morning. We are hoping and praying that we can get there in time to still meet Thanh Minh on Friday. (Feel free to pray along with us.)
In the meantime, the kids back home have been instructed to use a dry erase (not permanent!) marker to trace our travels on the world map in the hallway.
Now I shall lie down in our cheapo motel a few miles from our home... the very home from which we set off so many hours ago.
Comments
Gretchen
Love,
Anne