Saturday, March 29, 2008

Made it to Brussels (for the final time)

Well Gabriella and I are in Brussels waiting for our connection. But my adoption journey would not be complete without one more stress-filled situation. Buster from AoH picked me up around 6:15 for my 9:30 flight. It's about an hour drive and we got there around 7:15. Buster gave me my documents for the necessary clearances and said he would be outside if there were any problems. Well I get through security and proceed to the ticketing counter and the attendant asks for my final destination. And I explain Brussels, and that I had two itinerarys and that I would be going from Brussels to Amsterdam on another airlines. He informed me "no you won't" because Gabriella would need a Visa to enter Amsterdam because she's a Liberian citizen. American citizens don't need one, but Liberians do, so my hopes to save money using my Frequent Flier miles back fired. So I proceeded to the Brussels airlines office which is outside the terminal, all the time leaving my luggage in the terminal (wondering whos going to walk off with it). There was nothing the Brussels airlines attendant could do. So I proceed to go out in the parking lot, and someone calls Buster for me, while I have another guy get me a $5 Lonestar cellphone card. Fortunately I had asked Julie to leave me her phone, which is really Lauries. Anyways, I proceed to call Golden Rule and get a new itinerary. But even with the new itinerary, the Brussels travel agent could not print out my boarding passes. Well three $5 cards later, and several phone calls to Golden rule and 3 hours, I finally had my tickets and still had all my luggage. The only saving grace was that the flight coming in was delayed otherwise I would have never made it. And because the flight was delayed, had not the agent questioned my itinerary, I would have missed connection toAmerstam or had I made it, i would have been stuck there. We did not get on the plane and take off until 12:40am and Gabriella was up this whole time. She had some meltdown moments (who wouldn't) but we managed to get through it. But I found out she can get awefully sassy with no sleep. I began to really worry about the flight. I prayed for an empty seat next to me (because she was still on a lap ticket on the first leg) and that there would be a kind person next to me - and God answered both those prayers. And my last prayer would be that she would sleep. Amazingly enough, she fell asleep as we were taxing just before we took off. She woke up once and cried while we were eating dinner and i had to take a walk down the aisle, but 2 minutes and she was back asleep and slept the entire flight. She's being a little fiesty as I type here because she's still tired and i'm ignoring her, but we should make it to Chicago by 6:30 tonight where Kim will pick me up and we'll stay at her mom's in Milwaukee. So thanks for all the prayers, looking forward to being on American soil very soon with my little princess.

2 comments:

Becky Avella said...

I'm just so happy for you. I can't wait to see a picture of your whole family together.

Becky

Jeremy and Kamina Johnson said...

I am eager to see you all together!