Getting home

I mentioned in a previous post that our trip home was a nightmare that deserved it's own post!  Here it goes. Our 11:45 P.M. flight out of KTM got cancelled at 2 a.m. after we had been at the airport since 8: 30 P.M. being eaten alive by every mosquito in Nepal.  It seems to me that after being diverted as a result of bad weather, the crew should have known and communicated to their airport staff that they would need to rest for the night and not be able to leave KTM.  Instead we waited for two hours being told that the airplane was two hours away and when it arrived we would take off.  Did I mention that if we were not constantly waving our hands over our skin that we had mosquitos feasting on us? At 2 the announcement came, "flight cancelled." We collected our checked baggage, waited for a taxi that took us back to almost where we came from 6 hours earlier.  We were now staying at Annapurna Hotel making this the third hotel and fourth move in Nepal for us.  They could not tell us exactly what time our flight would be the next morning.  They would call us in "plenty" of time.  After laying our heads down for only 3 hours, the front desk calls us at 6:00 A.M. to inform us that the bus is here to take us back the airport and we need to be down as soon as possible. Seriously, nine minutes later, they ring again and say that everyone is waiting for us!

  Once we arrived in Kunming, China, two seemingly very concerned China Eastern staff members met us at the ticket counter to "help" us make the next connecting flight to Shanghai.  They busily bustled around shuffling our travel documents and boarding passes....working....taking care of us......escorting us to our gate and then they say this "Since this flight is now considered a domestic flight, your luggage is overweight.  Since I know they person working at the counter, I took care of it for you.  Now I need you to go to the ATM and exchange money to tip me."  Are you kidding me?  It is China Eastern's fault that our original itinerary was broken.  Not only that, we had no reason to exchange $ for yen and we only had two $100 bills.  So we rejected the request, J snatched our documents out of the guys hand and we proceeded through security. As a result of our first flight being cancelled, we missed our international flight out of Shanghai,China, so they told us in what little English they knew that we would be on the same flight the next day and they would put us up in Motel 168 (which we could see from the airport).

 We got in a taxi bus with some a driver who spoke virtually no English and a couple of other Chinese men, one who spoke minimal English.  It was a scary ride as the Motel 168 that was visable from the Kunming airport was clearly not the Motel that we were heading for, in the dark with a driver who spoke no English.  After 30 minutes of trying to break the language barrier, as we were trying to understand where this guy was taking us, we arrived at another Motel 168.  Our guess is that this one was cheaper not being near the airport.  Once at the hotel, we waited for at least thirty minutes to be waited on while L messed himself to the point of leaking through and I had nowhere to change him.   Finally we got our room key and had to eat so we headed to the restaurant.  Unfortunately no one spoke English, so we couldn't even order a meal.  We simply had lo mein noodles and L ate plain white rice.  We ordered a coke and they tried to make us pay for it.  I just kept saying that China Eastern was paying and finally they agreed to let us sign it to the room, which was on China Eastern.  We became worried that we wouldn't have enough time to warn our family that we would not be on the plane arriving Monday night as we were so confused about the three different time zones.  So we tried to access the internet to communicate with family to tell that we were not on the flight.  Again to be told it was not possible.  We worried  the whole night imagining our girls built up with anticipation to see us get off that plane only to realize we weren't on it (at midnight) and wouldn't be coming until the next night! All we could do was pray! Thankfully, with the change in staff in the morning, one person spoke enough English that we were able to get online in the buisness office, just in time before our family was to meet us at the airport.  We also worrried that there would be miscommunication with getting us a ride back to the airport to catch our flight so we got up and left the hotel early.  Once at the airport I was able to get in touch with family to be sure that they did get the email.  At last we could relax, until we discovered that we did not have L's boarding pass. Although we had a reciept, and after fighting with the airline all morning, we had to purchase him another, even though we are sure the "nice" men in Kunming "accidently" kept the boarding pass. We will be letting China Eastern know how we feel about their airline. We already warned them that we know lots of people who travel and take groups to that part of the world and that we would be sure that they know not to use this airline.  Finally, after a total time of 70 hours of travel, we arrived safely!  Since L had never been strapped in a carseat before, he cried all 45 minutes home along with L who cried because she didn't get to sit by him.  So in my first 45 minutes with four kids I had half of them crying.


What I could get of the Himalya's

L has made so much progress in just our first weeks home. He is such a different kid. He adores his sisters and they are adjusting to having a 2 year old boy around, sometimes easier than others. They are used to constructive play, but he is only interested in destructive play. We call him demolition man. This is not always a good combination. He just has no social skills. He is learning though that love comes with discipline, and his spontaneous headbanging has definitley decreased now that his needs are being met. Afterthe first two weeks home he slept peacefully in his own bed all night all alone. He is actually preferring Mommy to rock him to sleep over Daddy. I think he is finding security in our bedtime snuggles/rocking/singing/ book reading routine. He snuggles in, clutches his panda bear lovely and explores my features pointing to mine and then his own.  We are finally enjoying those tender moments that usually happen when the child is 6-18 months old that we missed out on.  He finally, after a week of being home became comfortable enough with our dog to start abusing him. Just like his initial fear of the pool, now he's too comfortable and the poor dog can't get a moment's peace.

Overall things are good, I am having to adjust to more dishes and laundry and having a naptime scheduled into our day. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful for that 3 hour break in the middle of the day so I can get a shower. 

One of my favorite quotes that came from L soon after returning home was, "Mommy, you picked the right one."  No, God did.