Arrival

I just found the notes I made while on the trip last year, so this is what I wrote about last May 23rd-24th. Some of this overlaps yesterday a bit:

We flew from Columbia to Washington with a lot of soldiers. When we were walking through the terminal to our gate I heard a man talking on a phone saying, "Our boy is a man today! He is a soldier! I am so proud!"

The pilot on the flight, (Faith will be happy to hear we had a lady pilot as she wants to be a pilot one day,) did a nice job of recognizing the servicemen and women and encouraging all of us to applaud them.

The flight from D. C. to Addis was full and the group of passengers very diverse. There were ladies in traditional dress and little girls in Hannah Montana and Dora outfits. The announcements and conversations we heard on the flight gave us our first opportunity to hear the amharic language.

When we arrived in Addis we had no trouble collecting our bags, changing money, and getting visas. We met the Garners of Tennessee, also adopting through America World, in the baggage claim area and along with them and the Mullins family we quickly found our guide, T, holding a sign for us in the main terminal area. Many families were reuniting with their relatives in this area, and there were many cheek kisses and hugs for those who were clearly coming home.

Post from David: Looks like Leslie got it all right but I'll add some of my thoughts/memories too. The flight wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. We had taken some DVD's and borrowed a laptop from the Hu's and we didn't even watch them or use the laptop on the flight. I remember being surprised at how many people were on our plane and in the airport. It was nice to see T with his sign for us so quickly among all the people there. While we waited for everyone to arrive I enjoyed a Coke Light from the bottle, it was perfect. What I wasn't prepared for was the air outside. It was very dry and smelled of smoke and dust. We found our way to our Toyota mini-van that would drive us to our quarters for the week. It was amazing to see how they stacked the luggage of 3 families on top of that van. I rode shotgun and immediately discovered a unique trend in Addis. It's very popular to have fur covering the dashboard. This serves to protect it and add a little style to the ride. When we arrived at our room I remember being so tired yet so anxious to meet Davis the next day. We could hardly wait.