Four Stars

Ty wanted me to blog, but it looks like he pretty much covered the journey to get here. At the airport in DC just in the boarding area for our flight, we already started to stand out (our social worker told us we would stand out over here), and so it wasn't hard to spot other couples who were going over to adopt. I saw this other couple with a baby carrier with no baby inside, so I told Kathi who promptly went over to start a conversation. Then I came over and started talking to them. They were actually a "Pioneer Couple" for the Rowanda program. They were super cute and really a nice couple from Pennslyvania. They have two bio children and this will be their first adoption. Then, while we were talking, another lady came up and joned in the conversation. She and her husband have three or four (can't remember) children and are adpoting a sibling group of three. wow! She home schools her children so she is going to have her hands full! Ty covered our flight, pretty uneventful, nice staff. Once we finally got on the last leg of the flight from Rome to Addis, Max and I were watching a movie and when it finished, I turned to the channel that has the map of where we were and I saw that we were over Africa and I just started to tear up. It's these unexpected things that get to me. Flying into Addis, I noticed that there were a lot of farms in the brown landscape but they were much smaller than we see in the US and shaped in different shapes rather than all rectangle and organized. Each farm had a house on it and they all were pretty much the same size. About a two bedroom house, I would guess. Then, when we got to the outskirts of the city, there were all these tiny houses, or roofs at least, that looked like little lean-to's and they were all crammed together with the edges of the roof touching the next one.

Our first day here went well. The guide was there at the airport holding a sign that said "Ty Barlow" so that made it easy. After loading all the monster bags he took us to the hotel which is in a nicer part of town, which for the US would be an area sort of like, well it looked more like Mexico with the little shops crammed together.The hotel was one of the nicest in the area. It was a "four star" hotel. I know this because it actually had four stars above the entrance. I took some photos which we will try to get on the blog. The staff was really nice, they really liked Max, with his red hair. Everyone over here is very quiet and soft spoken. I wonder if they think we are loud. Max is very excited to get the twins. He keeps asking when we will be able to go get them and wondering where we will have them sleep in the hotel, things like that. We are on a short flight and are landing, more later.