Day 2 Travel

Praise God Sherri & I woke up on our own bc our wake-up call didn't arrive!  We woke up early enough to head over to the airport early to try to get our bag sticker situation fixed.  The hotel van was packed full bc there was a group carrying a plethora of large rolled duffels, stuffed with clothes etc for orphans in Ethiopia... I think the agency they represented was either Everyday Heroes or Ordinary Heroes.  Several young kids--looked like high school or college.

At the airport, a United Agent did all the computer work to change the destination on our bag stickers...so our prayer is that they REALLY get re-stickered!!  We called and texted many friends/family for prayer to this effect.

We realized after we walked away from the counter that our seat assignments had changed dramatically.  We originally requested a window seat each, one if front of the other, bc they are more conducive to sleeping on the flight.  What we were given was side by side seats directly behind the bulkhead (the row for folks traveling with infants and toddlers)... so we made haste to our gate to try to get the situation corrected.

The agent at the gate explained that we could not have seats separated bc we were on the same record locator, so we resigned ourselves to our new seating fate.  He also then told Sherri that she would have to check her rolling bag!  Now, we saw plenty of folks waiting for the plane with rolling bags that didn't have to check their and only about 10 that checked theirs... what was up with that?  Sherri was unprepared to do this so she had transfer necessary things from her rolling bag to her shoulder bag (little did we know the next events or she would transferred even more!).

This flight was tracking on schedule and we were down to the last 4 hours when the PA announcement was made that there was a medical emergency and would have to make an unexpected stop in Rome to let someone off the plane.  This pit-stop added 3 hours to the flight.

So, you might be wondering what I did to pass the time on this flight---- I read, chatted with Sherri, watched movies (finally saw Soul Surfer--great show!), prayed & dozed a bit.

I must have been clenching & grinding my teeth bc my sore tooth was getting quite achey, so I made what I was come to realize was a really bad decision.  I took one of the pain pills the dentist prescribed, thinking it would take the edge off the toothache, would loosen my jaws so I wouldn't clench and would help put me to sleep.  BIG MISTAKE!!!  |The pill made me nauseous & I spent the next 6-7hrs suffering strong bouts of nausea.  I was unable to eat the breakfast they provided on the flight & de-planed with barf bag in hand.

In the midst of the nausea, we were sent to the wrong counter, told our connecting flight to Rwanda had already left and ushered downstairs in the airport to wait for someone from immigration to help us.  So here were were in Ethiopia with no Visa, no cell phone, waiting to understand what we had to do next.  Finally the agent brought our passports back to us, had a sheet of paper for each of us showing a hotel reservation, 3 meals & a 3 min international call each, and a temporary Visa.  And that is how I got a stamp in my passport for |Ethiopia!

  The next entry will be about our unexpected overnight stay in Ethiopia!