Ten days. We've been home for ten days! Part of me feels like it was 10 minutes and part of me feels like it's been 10 months. Goodness gracious. I have started writing this post in my head about 17 times but I never get very far because my brain has turned into applesauce. I cannot, for the life of me, put together a coherent thought. This post may not be clever or well-written, but I wanted to get something up here about the end of the trip before I forget everything. Even now I'm losing precious details at an alarming rate!
Our last couple of days in-country were fairly uneventful. Some of the things we had planned on doing were cancelled due to the rain, so mostly we just hung out at the hotel. We did venture out one night and took a near life-ending cab ride across town all because I had heard there was a Mexican restaurant. People, I don't know if you know me that well but if you do not please take note: there are very few things I would not do for Mexican food. And apparently that includes convincing my husband and brand new baby girl to get into a cab driven by a small Chinese man that speaks absolutely no English, hand him a hand-drawn map, and hope to heaven he takes you where you actually want to go. Well we did, and the driver delivered (but not without raising our blood pressure just a bit!!!) and we found the infamous Mexican restaurant. We were served by the cutest little Chinese waitress wearing a Mexican peasant dress you've ever seen. Because I know you've seen a lot of Chinese waitresses wearing Mexican peasant dresses. The food was good, not great, but good. It was at least enough to tide me over.
We spent part of our last day out on Shamian Island, home of the great White Swan Hotel. The hotel is currently being remodeled, so the island is more quiet than normal, but all the little shops are still there. We enjoyed a few hours of wandering around, reminiscing about our trip to China two years ago. Part of me wants to adopt from China a third time, if only so we can stay on the island again. I love it there! We took Lucy out for lunch at Lucy's and feasted on cheeseburgers, onion rings, and sweet tea. It wasn't Nebraska beef, but it sure tasted good!
Okay, now for the trip home. Ahhhhhhhhh... the trip home. You know that saying, "the best laid plans"? I'm not exactly sure how the rest of that saying goes, but I'm betting it goes something like this, "When traveling home from China with a brand-new baby, it's possible that the best laid plans will go flying out the window and you will find yourself curled up in the fetal position, crying for your mama."
Here's how it went down: We were slated to fly out of Guangzhou at 9:10 am, so we were up long before the crack of dawn, had everything packed and ready and were waiting for our guide in the hotel lobby long before the designated time of 6:15. We piled our belongings into the van and were whisked off to the airport. There was a bit of thunder and lightening and lots of rain but we didn't think anything of it. We had checked our flight times online and everything was good to go.
We arrived at the airport, checked in, found our gate, and munched on the boxed breakfast that the hotel had put together for us. Lucy charmed the other passengers waiting to board and had them all eating out of her hand. We boarded the plane, gave Lucy a bottle and she promptly fell asleep. At this point we are patting ourselves on the back and thinking, "Man! We are really good at this!"
Then the pilot came on the PA and announced that due to the weather we would be experiencing some delays. No biggie, we had a 3 and half hour layover in Tokyo. We could afford to be a little late. So we sat and waited and Lucy slept.
FOR THE NEXT THREE HOURS AND 45 MINUTES!!!
By the time we actually were cleared for take-off Lucy was fully awake and we were fully 4 hours behind schedule which meant that we would miss ALL of our connecting flights. Have you ever felt completely helpless before? That is how I felt: completely and utterly helpless. All I could do was worry. Then I would tell myself not to worry, there was nothing I could do. And then I would start worrying again.
We landed in Tokyo amid a plane-full of angry passengers. We certainly were not the only ones to miss their next flight. But I will say this: the good people of All Nippon Airlines were fantastic. They had already completely rebooked the rest of our flights. It was not ideal and times were a mess, but it would get us home and that was all we really cared about.
In order to get us on a flight that could get us to LAX we had to hop on a bus and take an hour and a half ride across Tokyo to another airport, which would not have been a big deal normally. Apparently Americans are free to roam about Tokyo as much as they please, but Chinese people are not. They took one look at Lucy's passport and said she couldn't leave without a visa. What?!?! A visa?!?! All we wanted to do was go to the other airport! So we had to go through yet another immigration line and have someone help us fill out a transit visa form so Lucy could hop on a bus. Mind you, this was all done in Japanese.
Finally that was taken care of and we loaded up our luggage, and climbed aboard a bus and went careening across Tokyo. Which would have been interesting, had it been daylight rather than the middle of the night. We did drive past Disneyland Tokyo, so I guess that is something. We arrived at the airport and re-checked in and went through security again and found our gate. We had a couple of hours to kill so we chatted it up with a nice Canadian lady and munched on Japanese fast food. I will tell you this about Japanese airports: they have the nicest bathrooms I've ever experienced in my whole life.
Eventually we boarded the plane for our longest flight of the trip, a mere 10 hours. This is the flight all international parents dread. How will the kiddo do? What do you do if they go berserk? Will the attendants actually throw you off the plane at 30,000 feet? Well, we shouldn't have worried, Lucy was such a trooper. She cried for maybe 10 minutes the whole trip. The rest she either slept or just hung out. She's a keeper, she is. The Hubbs and I didn't sleep, mainly because we were worried that she would wake up or fall off the seat or who knows what. But she slept, and really that is what counts.
We landed in LA feeling a bit like a wet dog. We were hungry, tired, dirty and completely confused on what day or time it was. Our eyes were bloodshot and we'd been wearing the same clothes for waaaaaaay too long. We sailed through immigration and customs, rechecked our luggage (again!!!) and worked our way from the international to domestic terminals. We had to go through security (again!!!) and the first TSA agent we met took one look at The Hubbs' Nebraska shirt and said, "All Cornhusker fans get an automatic pat-down."
God Bless America.
We found our gate and whipped out our long lost cell phones and turned them on for the first time in 2 weeks. We called our parents and let them know we were alive and still working our way home, albeit much more slowly than originally anticipated. Since our itinerary had completely been revamped we would be arriving in Denver at 1:00 am, missing our last flight into McCook. I called Great Lakes airlines and explained what was happening and was informed that our original flight had already been cancelled and we were booked the morning on the 12:45 pm flight. Perfect! We hopped online, found a hotel room that was close to DIA and had a free shuttle to the airport.
Lucy slept most of the way to Denver and The Hubbs and I simply held hands and prayed that soon this would all be over and we would be home.
We landed in Denver and collected our luggage and waited for the shuttle that took us to a nearby LaQuinta and possibly the best shower I've had in my life. We had absolutely no clean clothes to wear, but we were at least able to wash up and brush our teeth. I didn't even have any shampoo and had to use bar soap on my hair but I didn't even care because it just felt so good to get clean. by the time we had Lucy calmed down and asleep it was nearly 4:30 am, and by 9:30 am we were up again to catch the shuttle back to the airport.
Now I know what you might be thinking: why bother getting a hotel room for 6 hours? Well, by this point we had been traveling for nearly 36 hours with a small child and had been in 4 airports in 3 countries and I was borderline homicidal. It was either fork over the cash for a soft bed and a hot shower or someone was going to pay with their life. We chose the room.
We arrived back at DIA and went to check in at the Great Lakes counter where we were told that our flight had been... wait for it... cancelled. I nearly hit the floor. The look on my face must have indicated that this was less than ideal because the lady behind the counter gave us some meal vouchers and suggested that we go have something to eat and think over our options. The Hubbs gently guided Lucy and I to the nearest food court and found us a place to sit. I heard him call my dad and explain our predicament and I heard him say something to the effect of, "Jenni isn't really talking right now."
It was decided that we would change our flight so that we would fly into North Platte, rather than McCook and my parents would bring Luella to meet us there. This meant that we had yet more time to kill in an airport. We picked a deserted corner, took off our shoes, and basically set up camp. There is such a stark difference between the beginning of a long trip and the end. At the beginning I was so careful about where I would let Lucy crawl around, always making sure she was in a clean space and not wanting her to get into anything yucky. But by this point I didn't even care anymore. She was beginning to lose her patience with us and I can't say that I blame her. Here we had been filling her head with visions of farm and life and I think she was starting to wonder if the whole thing was a hoax.
Finally, finally, finally we boarded our last flight. The guy in the row in front of us was wearing a cowboy hat and it made me smile. Things were beginning to look up! As we began our descent into Nebraska and I could look out the window and see farmland and grassland I began to weep. Oh home sweet home!
We landed and walked across the tarmac and into the terminal and there waiting for us was the most beautiful 3 year-old in a fluffy yellow dress I have ever seen in my whole life! She looked like she had grown a foot while we were gone!!! It was as though we left her a little girl and came home to a teenager. Which of course made me cry all over again. We introduced the girls and watched them interact for the very first time.
Precious memories, indeed.
So now here we are, ten whole days later and that trip feels like a lifetime ago. It was hairy and frustrating and maddening and I cried in 3 different countries in the span of one day, but here is the good news: we made it home in one piece. Lucy did sensationally. We never lost our luggage and were never in any real danger, at least not that we know of. God was with us every step of the way!
We are now adjusting to life as a family of four. We were plagued by jetlag for a few days, but every night gets a little bit better. My mom came and helped for the first week and I'm convinced we would not have survived without her. She cooked and cleaned and snuggled and encouraged.
I'll close this with some pics of our reunion at the airport. I would add pics of the trip home but I didn't really take any.
Again, thank you so much to those of you that prayed for us before and during the trip. Please know that those prayers were answered!!!
