Drafted in Word at 4:37 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2 (EST)/5:37 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 3 (Beijing)
We’re on the plane from Newark to Beijing. HSH is nodding off with his iPod drowning out the more unpleasant noises of air travel. Bee is sitting across the aisle in Zee’s lap. Zee and Smiley have seats next to each other across the aisle from us. They’re reading “Good Neighbors,” which is one of Bee’s favorite stories.
The trip so far has been a comedy. Of errors.
We fell asleep last night near midnight (or didn’t fall asleep). We woke at 4 a.m. and drove all bleary-eyed to the airport, where we discovered that our flight? To Newark? Was cancelled. Cancelled.
So we drove from Albany to Newark, where we arrived in plenty of time to meet the hotel bellperson, who had traversed the river to bring us the suitcase that his colleague had neglected to put into our car before we drove to Albany.
The good news?
Our passports and visas arrived safely at the Albany hotel, and we were able to eat that amazing Mexican food at what has become my very very favoritest Mexican restaurant north of the Mason-Dixon and east of the Mississippi.
They make their sangria with Cointreau. Also, their food is pretty good.
Face it: we’re going 8000 miles to meet our daughter – what’s a few hundred miles of driving back and forth to get on an airplane?
At the Albany airport, we met another family who was connecting to this Beijing flight for an adoption trip. They rented a car to drive to Newark.
There is a group of several families on the plane who are going to adopt, and we met another family who is flying on their own.
There’s a family sitting right behind us, and another sitting right in front of Zee and Smiley.
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Post flight observances:
- Our flight path was amazing. We flew north from NJ, over the North Pole (Hi Santa!), then south over the Arctic Ocean and Siberia to China. As we approached the North Pole, I looked out the window and saw miles and miles of frozen landscape punctuated by the Big Man's workshop, Reindeer Games Stadium, the Island of Misfit Toys and Herbie's dentist office.
- If you are given the choice between flying to Asia on an American airline, v. a Chinese airline, go with the U.S. plane. Those extra cubic inches in seat room make all the difference in whether you feel like taking hyour own life during hours 8 through 13.
- Continental's vegetarian Indian meals are delicious. Much better than the steak or salmon that everyone else got.
- The helpful guy just before the ticketing line in the Beijing airport is not an airport employee, and he will ask you for $10 a person to perform a service you could have done yourself. As a matter of fact, if my current career path doesn't work out, I may go into business "helping" dazed and sleepy Westerners queue up in the Beijing airport.
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