Two More Blessings: Going to Bulgaria

Preparing to leave for our Gotcha trip meant painstaking farm work, house work, and readying children. We left three of our children with wonderful church families. We had taken our puppies to another wonderful church family. And off we went with Andrew to the airport.

When we arrived at the airport, we learned that our flight may be delayed. Soon, it was delayed so much that we were missing our connecting flight to Germany also. It was a scramble to find 3 seats on a different flight to get us back on track (seats were continuously getting reserved, since many other people were also scrambling to get going to their own destinations). And UGGGG. We spent 6 hours in the airport and ended up getting scheduled to fly out the next day.

As we were leaving the airport to drive back home, we discovered that John's wallet was missing. He went back to where he was sitting, no wallet. It wasn't in lost and found either. It was likely stolen.

My dear friend called and prayed with me at this time. Prayer with a God-serving friend was encouraging and God "focusing" during that frustrating day.

We then drove home, feeling sad and tired.

John spent his evening cancelling credit cards.

One neat thing that we discovered is:
We had one credit card in which to place our Bulgarian expenses. John was carrying that credit card with him in the airport at first. He handed it to me to call the credit card company to alert them of international travel. I called, then placed the card in my purse. So the one card we needed to have for travel, we did have! Isn't that so kind of God to work this out this way?!

I told Andrew we would enjoy a bike ride together in the morning, before we went back to the airport. I got out my bicycle and started going. The tire was flat. We didn't have much time to do anything about it, so no bike ride. :(

We went to the airport again, for our "re run".

That day, the flight was on time. We were rested. The bad thing was, it meant arriving to Bulgaria Sunday, instead of Saturday as we had planned.

I (Crystal) wore sea bands for the first flight, a two hour flight. They didn't work for me. I didn't throw up, but felt ill.

This was Andrew's first flight ever. He did really well and was thrilled to actually be in route to his new brother and sister!

So then onto second flight:
We were surprised by an upgrade to business class, which was really nice. Our seats laid all the way back like beds. I was seated next to Andrew, and it was a pleasure to watch him enjoy it all so much. We were served foods such as beef, shrimp, ice cream, and salads. Andrew ate so much in the airport and so much all over again on the plane.

This was our 8 hour flight.

I took 2 doses of Dramamine. (The package said to take one and that it lasts up to 24 hours, but to take 2 if needed). Well two didn't even work for me. I took a third and hoped that was okay. Still sick. It kept me from throwing up, but I was still sick, getting really sick.

We landed in Germany, then after about an hour and a half, we were onto another plane, heading to Bulgaria!

Yah, still stick.

We landed in Bulgaria and were picked up by one of the wonderful people with our adoption foundation. We were in a rush to drive to Ruse that day.

We were driven to our apartment. Since we were a day off course, we were met by the apartment owner's mother in law, who only speaks Bulgarian. She gave us a tour of the place, all the while talking in Bulgarian. I talked to the apartment owner on the phone, telling her that we know zero Bulgarian, but I think we understand everything and we really need to go. She tells her mother in law and the tour continues in Bulgarian anyway. I'm guessing she had more to say, so she said it anyway, for her own satisfaction.

And the motion sickness was not going away.

When the "tour" was over and we had the keys in hand. We then left most of our bags behind, and left from our apartment with just what we needed for one night.

Then we got into a vehicle for a 5 hour drive to Ruse. This is where our Ellie was.

By the time we arrived in Ruse, we were very hungry and thirsty and...you guessed it:
I was really not feeling well.

We took a look at our hotel room. It was weird, quite a weird set up, compared to American hotels.

Then we went to go eat.

We walked to the restaurants in the town center. The restaurant is one which I ate when I was visiting in December. It is a nice restaurant, with many good foods to choose. By the time our food arrived and we ate, it was so late into the evening.

We walked back to the hotel. At this point, I was so exhausted and motion sick, that walking actually was making me feel more motion sick.

We were all tired, jet lagged, but full of food.

We all took showers, the first showers we had in about 30 hours and fell asleep quickly.

Next post is the "Gotcha Day" post!

This is Andrew's very first plane trip.

Andrew brought a plastic, empty squirt gun to "shoot" the buildings he saw while in the sky. This "gun" was actually confiscated in Munich Germany during customs, on our way back home. Apparently, a kid can't have a bright orange plastic bubble squirt gun. Strange that all other customs didn't care. They were ridiculously thorough in that airport.