Ashley has asked me to write the post this morning. I suspect she will handle most of the posts, but this morning I will take a stab at it.
I guess the main thing is that we have arrived! Our first flight out of Atlanta was at 9:45 am (November 26) and we landed in Chengdu a little after 9:45 pm (November 27). Although we did sleep some on the plane, I don't think either of us were firing on all cylinders by the time we got here!
What an extraordinary day! Our flight to Chicago was relatively uneventful and during our layover, I was able to order some Chicago style pizza. Many of you may know that thick, Chicago style pizza is one of my favorite things to eat! If I am going to have to miss Thanksgiving dinner, this made up for it a little bit (but I really missed the turkey, dressing, etc!!).
There were several really interesting things that happened on the trip. First, on the flight to Chicago we had a number of soldiers just returning from Afghanistan. The stewardess announced that which spurred a round of applause that brought tears to my eyes. As we left the plane, a engineer from the Air Force (also just off deployment) met up with us because he was on his way to Beijing. His parents were from China. They moved to the States years ago, but he had never been to China. He was taking 3 weeks leave to go just see the country.
Once in Chicago, we met several families on their way to adopt children. Ashley had actually corresponded with one of them through an adoption blog and they had fun meeting in person. On the plane, we sat next to a couple from Jacksonville, FL that was on their way as well. They had one of their children with them, the rest were at home with her mother. The interesting thing about them was that they received word less than a week ago and pulled it all together in about 4 days (including getting the in-laws to fly in from Oregon). They are a really kind family and we are planning to reconnect when we all get into Guangzhou.
Well, we need to get out of the room and see Chengdu. We will post again later.
|
||||
Self Portrait
