Woke up on time (all of us), returned a stray library book, got just enough milk for our cereal, then welcomed Bro Joe, who would take us to the airport, and then drive our car home. Thank God for family at a time like this! Not only is he taking us in AND picking us up – he's minding our cats while we're away for two weeks! The girls squished into the back seat of my Toyota Corolla (don't ask me how we got five bags, four carryons AND four people in that Corolla, but we did!), and we're OFF! Joy de Kaam, our Bethany caseworker, showed up unexpectedly, about ten minutes before takeoff, to wish us well, and sent us off with her prayers, her family's, and the whole agency's.
Detroit, here we come!
12:00 - Here we are, Concourse F, Detroit Metro. No inflight problems, at least on the short hop (other than the discovery that Christy had had just 3 hours' sleep last night). One more thing to be grateful for – moving walkways between concourses! (Just one of many things I'm sure we'll find we miss terribly, once we're "over there". China, we've been told repeatedly, is schlepp, schlepp, and schlepp some more. Well, we TRIED to "pack light" – but how light CAN you pack for a guy, two gals, and a baby on the way back?! There's this stuff you just gotta have, that's all. We ate our box lunches, and then watched a HUGE group of Japanese (tourists? businesspeople & families?) take off on a very impressive-looking "bump" 747 for Osaka. Barb, who has a horror of small, underpowered "puddlejumpers", took one look at the 747-400, and pronounced herself satisfied.
Well, it's three hours to wait; so I find a plug in the wall, unpack laptop for daughter, and she immediately immerses herself in video poker. Mom & Dad, meanwhile, play Spot the Other Six Families. They would have no trouble spotting us, thanks largely to Dad's Rebecca Jade T-shirt (soon to be the next American fashion craze, I'm sure!). We think we've spotted one family already – could it be the O'Havers? (eventually, it turned out – not)
We DID meet two of the other families before we left – the Boisverts from Massachusetts, and the Cooleys from Virginia Beach. The Boisverts brought along their daughter, Misty – who, at 17 (our Christy is 14), turned out to be a really nice person. The Cooleys were Joel & Lesa, and they brought along mother Weta Rumsey. Much impassioned chattering by all. Another lady walked up, drawn by my high-fashion shirt – this was Christy Grothe, not adopting herself, but accompanying her sister-in-law Liz Marshall, who will be joining the group in Shanghai.
Bethany had told us to expect three other families. We did see one of them, but they stayed on the other side of the concourse, and then in the other half of the plane – we didn't get introduced until Beijing Airport. Some adoptive parents are quieter than others, I guess. At 3:30, we boarded.
Northwest Air, Northwest Air... If ever I DO fly again, Lord keep me from another transoceanic flight. I am thankful, anyway, that it was a Great Circle flight over the Pole, which cut the outbound flight down to "only" thirteen hours. I dunno how we're gonna survive that return flight – Hong Kong to Minneapolis is reputed to be all of 22 hours straight. Just gonna hafta try to sleep, is all. Because NOTHING prepares you for a transoceanic flight. You can't read for thirteen hours, or listen to cassettes for thirteen hours, or even do Mad Libs for thirteen hours! Don't get me wrong – Northwest did absolutely everything possible to make this flight enjoyable – ten channels of various kinds of music, four inflight movies, lunch, dinner and several snacks. It's just that, for me anyway, flying ISN'T enjoyable. And thirteen hours of it is hell, just hell. I suppose I would've had a better time, if I'd liked any of the four movies they showed in tourist class – Wag the Dog, Hard Rain, Sliding Doors, or As Good As It Gets. But I didn't. The seats were comfortable enough – but I've never mastered the knack of sleeping upright. I figure we each of us got two hours' sleep, tops.
