Okay, I decided that the only way I'll be able to blog about the whole thing is if I kind of go in stages.... remember I'm a mom now- no more free time!
Our trip started out eventfully, as our flight out of Minneapolis was delayed 4 different times. We took off 4 hours late and missed our flight to Dubai by 15 minutes. It was devastating, because there is only one flight from Dubai to Addis a day. We were scheduled to stay one night in Dubai and leave for Addis at 8:25 am the next day. Unfortunately, the next flight to Dubai had us arriving at 8:05 am. They said that there would be no possible way to make this connection as Dubai is a huge, very busy airport and undergoing construction at the moment. That meant that we'd have to spend the night in New York, then a night in Dubai... putting us an entire day behind schedule. We spent a miserable night in a crappy hotel in New York and caught the flight to Dubai leaving at 11:20am on Sunday. The flight was actually wonderful, as it was half full. I highly recommend Emirates Air, by the way... 100's of movies, tv shows and video games that you could control with a touch screen, lavender scented sleep masks and cotton booties, and really good food. About an hour into the flight, I realized that we were being told we were going to land an hour earlier than scheduled because of some seriously fortunate wind. This made for a less than relaxing flight, as it meant that there was a possibility that we could make our original connection from Dubai to Addis Ababa. We landed in Dubai at 7:40 am and ran through the airport begging everyone we saw to get on our plane. It would have been just too awful to have to watch it taking off without us. We made it to the gate just as they were finishing boarding and they hand wrote boarding passes for us. It was really quite the adrenaline rush! We made it to Ethiopia at the scheduled time, met up with the family we were supposed to meet up with at JFK, and were picked up by Ephrim (the driver for our agency) to be taken to the House of Hope to see our daughter.
Part II tomorrow.... I'm off to bed!
Our trip started out eventfully, as our flight out of Minneapolis was delayed 4 different times. We took off 4 hours late and missed our flight to Dubai by 15 minutes. It was devastating, because there is only one flight from Dubai to Addis a day. We were scheduled to stay one night in Dubai and leave for Addis at 8:25 am the next day. Unfortunately, the next flight to Dubai had us arriving at 8:05 am. They said that there would be no possible way to make this connection as Dubai is a huge, very busy airport and undergoing construction at the moment. That meant that we'd have to spend the night in New York, then a night in Dubai... putting us an entire day behind schedule. We spent a miserable night in a crappy hotel in New York and caught the flight to Dubai leaving at 11:20am on Sunday. The flight was actually wonderful, as it was half full. I highly recommend Emirates Air, by the way... 100's of movies, tv shows and video games that you could control with a touch screen, lavender scented sleep masks and cotton booties, and really good food. About an hour into the flight, I realized that we were being told we were going to land an hour earlier than scheduled because of some seriously fortunate wind. This made for a less than relaxing flight, as it meant that there was a possibility that we could make our original connection from Dubai to Addis Ababa. We landed in Dubai at 7:40 am and ran through the airport begging everyone we saw to get on our plane. It would have been just too awful to have to watch it taking off without us. We made it to the gate just as they were finishing boarding and they hand wrote boarding passes for us. It was really quite the adrenaline rush! We made it to Ethiopia at the scheduled time, met up with the family we were supposed to meet up with at JFK, and were picked up by Ephrim (the driver for our agency) to be taken to the House of Hope to see our daughter.
Part II tomorrow.... I'm off to bed!
Yay for new daughter! I'm so happy for you two. Also, I agree with the you on Emirates air, when I flew with them they gave me a hot towel to wipe my face!
ReplyDeleteI look forward to your future posts.