The Trip

 I really can't be all that pleasant about the trip over. I'm still trying to recover from the sheer exhaustion and chaos of it. Looking back on the two days of air travel, nothing distinctively went horribly wrong--it just all had this overwhelming feeling of being too much.
Our first flight left Seattle around 1 pm and we landed in Amsterdam around 7:30 am. The kids did great the whole way, although I don't know what Delta is thinking in assuming that one kids movie is sufficient for a 10 hour flight. Ezra saw enough Toy Story for the mutant spiky-haired doll-spider to work its way into his dreams for two nights in a row. Elsa and Ezra slept for only about an hour and a half of that first flight, and so we all arrived in Amsterdam a little shell-shocked. Thankfully, we had bulkhead seating and a bassinet for Daisy, so I didn't have to hold her in my arms the whole way and she was able to sleep quite a bit.
Much to our relief and the kids' excitement, Grandma and Papa were in Amsterdam to meet us and be with us on the flight from Amsterdam to Addis. Hauling a sleeping Daisy, a diaper bag, two kids backpacks, two rolling carry-ons, and a regular backpack, trying to keep Ezra being run over by the motorized carts, we trudged from one end of the Amsterdam airport to the other and about melted into Caleb's parents' arms. We decided to go ahead and go through the gate-side security and be ready to board the plane a little early. If anyone has been to the Amsterdam airport, then you may remember that they have these holding-type rooms that you make your way through between the rest of the terminal and before you board the plane. So we went through and were waiting to board when we found out that the plane was to be delayed two hours because of mechanical trouble. No big deal, right? Usually. But they had herded an entire plane's worth of people into these tiny holding rooms and then none of us were allowed to leave while waiting out the delay. And I don't think I have EVER seen as many families with small children on a flight before. Also, Africans operate from this mentality of whoever-pushes-to-the-front-of-the-line-first-gets-helped-first. It was mayhem. Chaos. So because of the crowded plane, there was a little KLM dude marching around demanding that everyone with rolling carry-ons check their bags instead. We off-loaded our carry-ons to him and claimed a couple of chairs to sit and wait. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we didn't all have seats together. Caleb had a lone seat (an exit row, so that ruled out the possibility of the baby sitting there with me) and then me with the brood in the back of the plane. And due to the above mentioned mentality of pushing=being helped, I was unsuccessful in getting any changes made to our seating arrangements.
All is well that ends well. We all made it on the plane...Caleb's mom graciously (heroically, life-saving-ly, awe-inspiring-ly) offered to sit with Elsa and Ezra, Caleb's dad sat in the lone seat, and Caleb and I sat with Daisy in their two seats. Daisy and I slept a lot of the flight and I think it was only once that I almost dropped her in my sleep.

Arrived in Addis to only be stopped in customs (a new experience for us--we've never been stopped before) for three hours as the customs guys tried to figure out how much to charge Caleb for his used radiator shrouds and the new cordless drill. We woke up the next morning to find that our carry ons (yes, the ones forcibly removed from us in the Amsterdam chaos) had been rummaged through and both our satellite phone and video camera had been taken. I've never been stolen from before and it was a strange feeling--the kind of sputtering indignation of "But that was MY stuff!" As if that matters.

 And it doesn't. We're here. We're safe. We'll be headed home soon.