November 28, our travel day home, was a LOOOONNNGGG
day. We got up at 5:00 am or so
Guangzhou time so that we could be out the hotel door at 6:00. Connie and Lin took us to the airport, about
a 45 minute drive. It took us a while to
pass through security and Chinese customs.
Before the flight, we talked with a family from Kentucky who had adopted
a Chinese boy with a slight disability and shared two of our flights home. Our 4-hour flight left Guangzhou at 9:15 en
route to Tokyo, where we arrived at 2:10 Tokyo time (an hour ahead). Charlotte wasn’t particularly happy on this
flight, and did not nap more than a few minutes. In Tokyo, we got to pass through Japanese
security (apparently they don’t trust the Chinese) and then had a 3 hour or so
wait. I found crackers and a McDonald's
vanilla milkshake for Charlotte. Bizzy
found Haagen-Dazs ice cream. And I found
some sushi (can’t stop in Japan without eating sushi). Maura wasn’t hungry. The Kentucky couple told us about the extended
family and friends would be there to meet them when they got home. We took off from Tokyo at about 6:00 pm bound
for Chicago, a 11+ hour flight. Not long
after takeoff, Charlotte became unhappy and it was very hard to keep her from crying. We could distract her momentarily but in general
she screamed. The burden of the crying
fell heaviest on Maura – Charlotte had bonded to her, so she screamed when she
was in Bizzy’s or my lap and was slightly more content in Maura's lap. The airplane dimmed the lights and we thought
we had her asleep, then they turned on the lights and rang a bell because we
hit turbulence, and she started screaming again. We were the people you turn and stare at on
the airplane when a kid won’t stop crying.
We tried to take Betsy Segal's advice – remember that this too shall pass. I walked her around the plane for a while –
that helped a little, or at least changed up the routine. Finally, after about 2.5 to 3 hours of more
or less non-stop crying, she fell asleep.
It was momentary fitful sleep (an hour or less) for me and pretty much
none for Maura and Bizzy, and Charlotte woke and fussed some more, but at least
the full-on crying jag didn’t last the whole flight like it has for some people.
We arrived in Chicago O'Hare at about 2:30 pm on November
28, having left Tokyo at 6:00 pm on November 28. We were pretty disoriented from the travel
and time change. We went through US
customs. I was a little concerned about
whether some tea we bought would make it through (it did). We waited a solid hour or so for the Homeland
Security people to process our paperwork.
The Kentucky family were there too – they were nervous because they had
a tighter connection to make than we did.
When they finally let us out of customs, Charlotte was officially a US
citizen. Yay! We had to pick up our checked baggage and
transfer to a different terminal with all of our bags (not easy) and re-check
our bags and go through US customs again at the other terminal. Finally, after 4 pm, we were able to settle
in near our gate for the last flight to Boston, which took off after 6:00 pm. That flight (2.5 hours) seemed very short by
comparison to the first two. We landed
in Boston at 9:30, got our bags, and were picked up by our friend Jessica
Pollak, who had also dropped us off two weeks earlier (I should say, a really
good friend!). Jessica drove us home,
somehow conversing with us through our babbling incoherence. Our doggies Rupert and Daisy were ecstatic to
see us - Charlotte was understandably afraid of them (we’re not sure if she’s
ever seen dogs before) but eventually they calmed down and we got everyone to
sleep after midnight.
I think it ended up being a 32 or 33-hour day, with nearly 18 hours of flying time. Anyone who saw me and talked to me the next couple of days can attest to the effects!
I’ll have more entries later on how things are going here at
home, and reflections on the trip to China, but that’s enough for this post.
