Fri 14 Feb 2014 The trip home

Fri 14 Feb 2014  The trip home


What can you say about a trip that takes 24 - 26 hours?  Or a day that is 32 hours long (24 + 8 hours time differential)? The flight from Addis to Dulles takes about 17 hours, east to west.  (It is only 13 1/2 hours west to east, but fighting the prevailing winds and stopping for an hour or so in Rome sure does slow you down a whole bunch.)


The plane is 100% loaded.  The prior day's flight was cancelled because Dulles had close to a foot of snow.  Thus this flight has a potential for 150-175% occupancy.  Obviously, most of the passengers stranded from the day before found other ways to get back to the US (presumably through Europe on other airlines).  We talk with a gentleman who got to the airport on 12 Feb, was dropped off by his local business contact, and was told to call if there was any trouble.  He found a way to spend the extra 24 hours. 


Because the plane leaves at 10:20 PM Ethiopian time and gets in at 7:45 AM EST, it is wholly a nighttime flight. Nothing to see out the window. But nobody can sleep on an airplane for 17 hours. Carol watches "Rush" and "Chariots of Fire", then drills down into the international films, TV shows, and documentaries. One striking nature show, "The Great Migration", charts the perilous and relentless forces that compel creatures large and small to leave the places they were born and strike out for unknown shores.


Unlike the trip from west to east, the return trip has four Ethiopian infants on it, all presumably newly adopted by their accompanying American families. Such beautiful children - little Gondar cherubs. Carol tears up a bit, thinking of the great migration occurring here before us.


Ethiopian Air reserves the bulkhead seats for folks with infants.  If your infant weighs less than 20 lbs, the child can utilize the bassinet that hangs from the bulkhead wall.  We talk for a while with a woman who is standing, holding her infant.  Apparently he was too heavy for the bulkhead seat and the bassinet. This is a child once considered to be a 'failure to thrive' baby.


The Rome touchdown occurs virtually unnoticed. Passengers are served 3 full meals en route. Even the lady across the aisle, who posted a note on her seat - NO MEALS - wakes up and eats. On a flight like this, one's body is profoundly disoriented.


As we land in Washington, we see piles of snow here and there.  D.C. had received something like 10-12" of snow the day before.  Even after the snow plowing and the melting there is a lot on the ground.


As we wait for the rows in front of us to deplane, Carol strikes up a conversation with a Washington-based woman who is an international affiliate for Special Olympics. She is returning home from a pan-African meeting in Malawi. Yes, Special Olympics has a worldwide reach. We talk about adoption (we have since exchanged emails). To be continued ...


Anyway, we have landed in the States. The line for customs is long and slow.  Once we are through with customs, it is time to pick up the luggage.  Our two backpacks seem to have been last items off.  Pick up the bags, and get into the lines to be examined.  We have nothing to declare; the customs dogs concur. There are two lines - one for passengers reboarding, and one for passengers leaving the airport.  The lines are not at all marked, and we mistakenly get in the line to leave the airport. 


We find ourselves in the departure section of the airport, along with a number of others from our flight.  By now we have wasted well over 2 1/2 hours.  This is OK for us because we have a 4.5 hour layover.  But one family with a newly-adopted infant only has a 3 hour layover, and they have nearly missed their connections.  Anyway, we wander over to the United ticketing area, are told to just leave our already ticketed bags in the pile, and enter through security to get into the departure part of the airport.  This doesn't feel exactly right, but we are strongly urged to get on with it, and so we bid adieu to our bags once more.


We have a United Express plane to Atlanta.  This is a small 78 seater, with seats 4 across and a really narrow center aisle. A step up from the Antonoff we flew from Osh to Bishkek, but not much. We are scheduled to leave at 12:15 PM, but time passes.  The flight attendant comes on the mike and says we are being delayed because the bags of 11 international passengers are coming over to be loaded onto the plane; as soon as they are loaded, we will be off.  Great news!  Whose bags could those be but ours and others who had flown in from Addis.


We finally leave about 13:10 PM for an uneventful flight to Atlanta.  In Atlanta, we go to the baggage arrival area, and . . . no bags.  Not just us, but a number of passengers who came in to Dulles on international flights are without bags.  While waiting for our luggage we met a woman from Uganda whose trip started the morning of 12 Feb.  She had been traveling (including the extra 24 hours) for something like 60-65 hours. We file our missing bag claims.


Bad news.  The one key to our house was in Mike's bag.  We call a friend.  She happens to be near the airport, and soon arrives to drive us to the house.  We call our son-in-law and granddaughter, who have a key to the house, and they meet us there.


It is close to 2 AM Saturday on our body clocks, but it is time to treat everyone to a dinner.  What can be more downhome than our meal at Folks:  fried whole catfish, cornbread, collard greens, Southern fried chicken, etc.


Welcome home indeed. Land of potable tap water and ever-present toilet paper.


The next morning, at 6:30 AM, Mike notes that the United computer shows that our bags are at the Atlanta airport.  He calls the 1-800 number and asks to be connected to a real person at the United desk at the airport so he can arrange to drive to the airport and pick up our bags.  No luck finding a real person at the airport.  Our bags are dropped off inside our garage that morning/midday.


Mike speculates that the bags of the 11 international passengers made it over to our United Express flight - the United flight was 100% full because the corresponding flight from the day before was cancelled - someone did a calculation and determined that if the international bags were loaded on the plane, the plane would be too heavy for takeoff - and thus the bags were shunted over to the next flight to Atlanta that evening.