The Journey, in Carla's words

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Where to start? I guess from the VERY beginning of Thursday December 6th, 2007. The day that will forever be etched into my mind as the longest day of my life!

We had trouble sleeping and kept getting up as things we meant to do popped into our head. I believe it was around 1:30 AM when Samuel, who was sleeping with us, started giggling during his sleep. It was so cute and precious. Luckily, it helped us relax and we both fell asleep around 2AM. The alarm went off at 5AM. 3 hours of sleep, but knowing the long flight ahead of us (14 hours to Beijing from Washington D.C.), we were not concerned. We get to the airport at 6, the board is showing the flight is on time. 6:30, the ticketing agent arrives and tells us the flight has been cancelled. She works her magic, tells us that we've been re-booked for the same flights just leaving Friday December 7th, arriving 3:30PM in Beijing on Saturday December 8th. NO! We'd miss the touring, isn't there other flights we can get on?

They look, supervisor gets involved, and we are re-booked on a flight path that goes through Denver to LA to China with an airline change to China Air in LA for a "red-eye" flight to Beijing. We'd get into Beijing at 5:20AM, in enough time to join the group for touring.
We go home with the kids (and my Mom) after eating breakfast out, and we clean. We prepare again for "leaving" and head out at 12:30PM for the airport. We have no problems getting on our flight to Denver. We thought that the cancelled flight was our "snafu" for this portion of the Adoption journey. We were excited to be on our way, finally.

We get to Denver, and find our gate. Denver's Airport I must say is quite nice. We had a scheduled lay-over of roughly 3 hours, so we had plenty of time to explore and eat. We even showed the Customer Service people for United our boarding pass for China Air and asked about possible upgrades to the assignments. They were not able to do anything (duh!). We were sitting there, waiting to board our flight.

Our scheduled 7:40PM departure slipped to 7:56 then to 8:10 then to
8:26 then to 8:49 and then a few minutes later to 8:56...because LA was adjusting their air traffic flow due to high winds. Our almost 3 hour layover in LAX was slipping away. It was now 7:20ish and there was an announcement made.

"If you are connecting internationally in LAX your ticket has been re-booked and your bags are going to be on that flight. Go to gate 42, check in, and get your new boarding pass."
Okay, snafu #2? That flight was scheduled to leave at 8:05PM, and as we approached 8:05, it totally changed to St. Louis! ACK. We were reassured that we would be boarding soon and bound for LAX. Great.

We boarded at 8:15, scheduled new take off was 8:30. Got on the plane, backed up from the gate and had to sit. LA had moved us back again...15 minutes. FINALLY left at 8:45. The plane was a 737-300 and there were maybe 24 people on board. The plane had been delayed out of Des Moisne I believe, due to something, and it was 5 hours late. Most of those passengers had found other flights.

We get to LAX at 10 something PM, our flight is leaving at 12:40 AM, and when we ask how to get to that flight we learn that we have to leave the United terminal (#7) and go to the street and catch the "A" bus and get off at Terminal #2 and then go to the gate. We had to leave the secured area to do this. As it was nearing midnight, and a Thursday night, I figured it would not be a huge problem. Found out that Thursday night around midnight is one of the most popular international flying days. I guess so as it took us around 30-45 minutes to get through security. We walk into the terminal, and it's packed. There were a minimum of 4 747 flights taking off from this terminal. The terminal is on the small side, one bathroom with 10 stalls. When there were close to 600-800 people there. Stinky, and dirty, and oh so warm due to the amount of people there. Kids were crying (tired). Moms weere cranky (tired, hot, and whining kids). We walk up to the gate, hand them the boarding pass we had gotten from United and said that we were told to check in with the gate and this number on the ticket is the e-ticket number and for them to look it up.

Okay, remember I had given it to the Customer Service person? They didn't question it. They didn't notice it. There were 2 words written on the boarding pass "Paper Required." We've never encountered this before, and the supervisor at our original airport had assured us that it was all we needed, and that number written on it could be looked up for something...the paper? It was now around 12:10am and people were crowding the podium trying to get their tickets and checked in. The gate agents took care of them, ignored us somewhat, but would work on our situation between other people.

Around 12:15 we were told "here are your options. You pay for a brand new ticket and try to get refunded on this one booked through United, or you can go back to the ticketing counter for United at Terminal 7 and get a paper ticket to back this up." The flight was leaving at 12:40. It was 12:15. We had 25 minutes to leave the terminal, catch the bus, get to terminal 7, get to ticketing, explain our situation, print the ticket, then catch the bus again to Terminal 2, go through security, and get back to the gate. It was NOT an option. They would not budge. Everyone started boarding around 12:30. I started crying.

A supervisor called United, asked them to give them something (paper ticket promise...I was crying and not paying too close of attention).

At 12:35 we were told if we could get United to give us an e-ticket we could board. We had confirmed seats on the FULL flight, they showed us as passengers booked on the flight...we just did not have the paper ticket that was required. It is this paper ticket that China Air sends in for payment from United. United would not give us the e-ticket. China Air would not let us board. They closed the plane, and pushed off from the gate. I cried some more.

Dh called United back to work on alternate arrangements. China Air got our luggage to their ticketing area for us to pick up. China Air reps who felt sorry for me because I was sobbing worked on finding us reservations for the next fastest flight to Beijing. It was United to San Francisco and then San Francisco to Beijing. Dh got it confirmed.

It was scheduled to arrive at 3:32PM December 8th.

Yes. The same time as the flight we had originally be re-booked for flying through Dulles. We could have done the waiting at home. So, it was now roughly 1:30am. We get to China Air ticketing and pick up our baggage. We walk outside, catch the bus to go to Terminal 7. It took about 15 minutes by the way. We walk in and United counters are closed. We see one United person on her way out, she recognizes that we look like crap and lost, and asks if she can help us. We tell her our story, I tear up again (evidently crying is not over yet). She turns around, walks us to the ticket counter and verifies our reservations, gets us on Economy Plus for the flight to San Francisco, prints up boarding passes for us (the actual ticket looking ones). Gives us meal vouchers, and offers a hotel room as the security is closed, we can not check luggage, AND the terminal is closed. We were stuck in the ticketing area. As it was now 2AM, our flight left at 6:50 AM to San Francisco, we really did not have enough time to get to hotel, sleep, and get back. I was terrified we'd not wake up in time.

Thus, we sat. In the ticketing area. From 2AM until they re-opened at 4AM to check luggage. Security opened at 4:30AM. These are Pacific Times, and not our original time zone. At this point we'd been awake for 25.5 hours. Straight. "In transit" from the first attempted flight for 24 hours, and "in transit" from our 2:30 departure for 18 hours. We still were not even to the airport from which to leave for Beijing!

We finally get to our gate for the San Francisco flight. I'm staggering around. I swear I felt the building wobble, but Dh assured me it was not. I could not really walk straight. I could not think straight. At 5am, I called my friend to post our update, and Dh talked to the Customer Service agents to see about upgrading our flight to Beijing seats to Economy Plus. We were willing to pay the extra $109 a person for them. But after hearing what we had gone through (add 30 minutes to all above times), she did it for free.

Back at the San Francisco flight gate, we bought neck pillows and Cinnabon. I was too tired to eat. I forced myself to stay awake as I knew I would not be waking up quickly once I did sleep. I made it to my seat. I faintly remember bumps as we taxied to the runway, and I sort of vaguely remember the seat tilting backwards as we took off. I woke up when the fasten seat belts light came on for our descent. A little over 1 hour nap. Refreshed me enough to make it through the
2.5 hour layover in San Francisco, and onto the Beijing Flight.

After our experience with China Air, I asked the gate agent to VERIFY that the ticket would work as soon as I saw her. Which was LONG before the hour prior to departure. I still not take an easy breath, or believe it was going to happen until I saw the machine accept our boarding pass. I was never so happy to see a plane seat in my life!

Ended up that the flight was not full, and Dh and I had 3 of the Economy Plus seats to ourselves. Delightful. The crew was wonderful, the pilots were great. Just a super smooth...LONG...flight. Alaska looked very different than I had pictured, less white snow/ice areas. Russia was beautiful with its snow and mountains and then the plains. Finally, we were flying over China. BEAUTIFUL. Of that 12 hour flight, I think we slept 8-9 hours. We finally arrived around 3:45PM. Checked in, saw some of the beautiful city with crazy drivers (which I've been told are better than in the province), and met up with the group for dinner. It was wonderful to see them, to finally meet them. 2 of our group are still not here, but should be in tomorrow evening.
Our guides are super sweet and are taking us to Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City while the rest of the group is at the church service.

We'll meet back up with them for lunch, go to the Great Wall and the Jade Factory. We missed the Pearl Factory (so everyone is going to have to make do with pearls from Guangzhou instead...Cheri has agreed to help me pick out good ones).

Total travel time, from when we got up to when we landed in Beijing.
3:45PM is 1:45am Saturday to us, so, 48 hours minus 3 hours 15 minutes. Or roughly 45 hours. On roughly 9-10 hours of sleep.
From first attempted flight - 43.5 hours.
From 2nd attempt that actually left - 37.5 hours

It took us - 3 booked flights to Beijing to actually get here. We visited 5 airports. We had a total of 8 flight reservations made for this trip, only 4 of which we actually went on. We spent so many hours WAITING in the airports that I lost count.

I have a new respect for people on The Amazing Race. I am not a good candidate for that show. When I have not slept, my coherency is shot.

I will do a "what we learned on this trip" post soon. #1 - if it says "paper required" make sure you have that paper!! A close 2nd is when you drink lots of water, expect multiple trips to the bathroom during each flight...even the 2 hour ones. 3rd, Ear planes DO work. 4,
that neck pillow is a must have. Period.

Goodnight all...my hard bed is calling my name. This room is starting to move like LAX was moving that early morning...was it only yesterday? I have photos, but I'll add them later. I think. I do not look too..umm...pretty in them. ;)