After a confusing time with our itinerary, lack of communication from the travel agent, and both of us in total frustration (handling it very differently, might I add), we FINALLY left Arizona on Tuesday, August 27. Whew!
We flew to Chicago with another teacher who is going to be working with the ADEC as well. The kids were angels on the flight, thank goodness. When we landed in Chicago we had to go to a different terminal in order to get on our international flight. By this time there were a few other people we recognized to be going to Abu Dhabi as well.
I have never been on a flight where they weigh your carry on, but now I have. We had to get in line to have them weighed. They could not weigh over 7 kilos. None of ours did, thank goodness, but only because we took Millie's baby doll out of one of the bags. I told her to hold it and act as if we forced her to give it up she would scream her head off. Pretty sure she didn't really understand all that but she did hang onto the baby until after the bags were weighed.
The flight to Abu Dhabi, I am not going to lie, was brutal. It was 14 hours long! Jack played games, watched movies, and slept. Millie just slept, probably 11 of the 14 hours. They were, again, near perfect on the plane. So imagine how horrible I would have thought it was had they not been so perfect.
For as discombobulated as this journey has been, and I'm speaking of the last several months, the exit from the plane, going through customs, getting on the bus, and getting to our hotel, the Aloft (yes, the same one you would find by Arizona State University), was flawless and all happened in about 40 minutes.
When we arrived at the hotel we were greeted with glasses of juice served by several wait staff. There must have been about 40 of us checking in at Aloft this evening. We waited in line and surrendered our work visas along with our passports in order to get our official stamped work visa in our passports.
We then came up to our room. With the many, many bags we had, Stuart said he would go and point out which ones were ours and I could take the kids to the room. Joy! Keep in mind Abu Dhabi is 11 hours ahea of Arizona. So we are in a place where it is time for a good night's sleep with two kids who are ready for a full day of fun.
Needless to say, even after showers and a little television, the kids were far from ready for sleep. Stuart and I were all too ready because neither of us had slept much on the plane. Getting older stinks!
Finally, we insisted that everyone lay down, we turned off the lights and I began to write this entry. Up until about 2 minutes ago Millie was still crawling all over on me as I continued to forge through this writing.
I am happy to report that I can hear heavy breathing from the other three people in this room. And if you listen closely, you might hear it from four in about a minute.
Miss everyone already, but ready to get this adventure going. (Written at 11:45 pm- published at 3:45 am, when we were all WIDE awake!)
Love,
Dana (Stuart, Jack, and Millie)
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