It was a long day waiting for the time to come to go to the airport! Mike woke me up that morning and i would have thought it was Christmas! He would have been jumping on the bed if i hadn't been in it. So, we got ourselves packed up – lots of space and under weight so that we can bring lots of stuff home! My parents came and picked us up and took us to the airport. It rained all the way there and hopefully it didn't freeze on them on the way home. There had been freezing rain earlier in the day. We did stop for supper on the way and had a good 'last' Canadian supper. Then we were off to the airport.
It was smooth sailing all the way through check in and security and before we knew it we were waiting at the gate for our flight. What a huge plane!!!! An airbus 380-800!!! The plane wasn't full and we had an empty seat beside us which was nice. Our flight took off at 9:45pm. We flew with Emirates and so our 13 hour flight went to Dubai. We added about another hour onto that flight for de-icing and other airport delays. It was a pretty good flight. Neither of us has anything to compare it to though. Emirates has a nice inflight entertainment system that included live cameras from the outside of the plane. I don't think either of us slept more than 20 minutes at a time.... We arrived in Dubai the next day at 7:30pm (local time).
Arriving in Dubai was interesting. Once we figured out 'which line to be in' it went smoother. It only took 2 hours to get our visa, get through customs and find our shuttle to the hotel. I thought that was pretty good. The Dubai airport is something else!! It is massive and very glitzy! Lots of lights and shiny things :) You aren't allowed to take pictures in the airport – too bad! As part of our flight we had a layover with a hotel and food vouchers included in our flight. The hotel was filled with other travellers such as ourselves and it felt like the United Nations!!!! We had quick showers – so NICE!!! and then off to the dining room for a buffet supper. It was very busy and lots of unfamiliar food (get used to it!!) At this point we weren't too hungry anyway. I think both of us slept pretty well that night. We were up by 5:00 and enjoyed a really nice buffet breakfast in the dining room and then off to find the shuttle to the airport. It was just starting to get light out as we were leaving for the airport. The hotel was very close to the airport so we saw very little of Dubai. It was a very busy place – lots of traffic.
Our flight from Dubai to Addis was 4 hours long. Getting through the airport took longer than i anticipated as it is so huge!! It seemed that we just got to the gate and suddenly we were boarding. We took a bus from the terminal to the tarmac and the ride was about 5 or more minutes. It is a huge airport!!!! It suddenly started to feel very real to me when we started circling Addis to land. Here we were about to land in the country of our son! Wow. I did manage to keep it together. Once we got our visas, getting through the airport was no problem. We were very happy to see all of our bags !!!! Unfortunately there was a mix up with our driver and he had come in the morning to pick us up... A nice young lady at the airport helped us out and called the guesthouse and soon our driver came and got us.
What a feeling to step out of the airport! How beautiful! There are mountains surrounding the city on all sides. Lots of palm trees and flowering bushes. It was 20 but to me it felt hot. What a crazy ride to the guesthouse. It is a national holiday today and so I am not sure if it was more busy than normal but there were people everywhere!!! Lots of horns beeping and cars and trucks going everywhere! I do have to say that they deal with roundabouts better than we do in KW :) We were greeted very warmly by the guest house staff and shown our room. It is quite comfortable and has a balcony that we have already enjoyed. We spent some time getting settled in and then having a nap. All along i had a feeling that we were forgetting something... And guess what it was? Toothpaste... We each have the little travel size toothpaste from our carryon's and that is it. Its funny because i have been lecturing Mike on travel safety including not to use tap water to brush teeth. Well, we had just discovered the lack of toothpaste when i need to brush my teeth. So, using a small amount so as to ration what we have, i proceeded to put the tooth brush and paste under the tap water... I rinsed it off with bottled water and am hoping for the best. So far so good. Tonight we had dinner here which was very good. We have met a couple that are from Woodstock that are staying here! Their daughter adopted a little girl a year ago. They came back to do more travelling. We had dinner with them tonight. There is also a young lady named Charlotte who is staying here from the UK. She is volunteering at the orphanage. She was able to tell us a bit about Bedi. She is teaching english to the older children. It feels like a family atmosphere here which is really nice.
Its just after 8:00pm and we are ready for bed! Its been a long few days! We will go tomorrow at 10:00am to see Bedi for the first time. I still can't believe it is happening!!!! Tomorrow we will see our son for the very first time. Then Sunday we will head out to church and Monday is court.
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