Arriving safely!

We tried not to focus on the fact that the plane seemed old! The flight attendants were some of the most beautiful Ethiopian women I have ever seen.
We were thrilled our luggage and donations made it in one piece! Now we are on our way!

It was a 12 hour direct flight from DC to Addis Ababa and it was much better than I thought it would be. I was actually shocked at how loud the flight was. For the majority of the time people were walking around talking to one another. I really wasn't able to sleep much (maybe 2 1/2 hours broken up) but amazingly I really wasn't tired. Which is a miracle considering I only slept 2 1/2 hours the night before. Matt was able to sleep a little better than me. The food was very average, but we didn't go hungry. The biggest disaster of the trip was that before we boarded Matt bought us sandwiches. He got me a veggie sandwich and it was covered with three layers of mushroom. I hate mushrooms!! Kathy, Krissy, and Jen, if you are reading this right now I know you are laughing!! Of course, I couldn't eat it. Matt tells me that I would starve rather than eat mushrooms. He is right. We watched movies, read our books, and were able to talk with an Ethiopian gentleman sitting next to us who runs an orphanage in Ethiopia so that made for a fun conversation. He is also an adoptive father. He even gave us his email address and told him to email him if we needed anything and assured us we would have a wonderful trip. I spent a lot of time praying for the crying babies and toddlers on the plane. I felt so much for the mothers of these sweet children who just couldn't sit still for 12 hours. One little boy of about two kept coming up to Matt and patting his hand and arm. It was so cute!! We were so happy to finally get off the plane and get going. We had an easy time getting our luggage and donations. Then we found our driver and we were off. As we walked out of the airport I was immediately struck by the different smells and sights of being in a foreign country. It was all so exciting! Most exciting (and scary!) was the drive to our hotel. I have never seen so many people just walking around these major busy roads, with cars honking at each other and no real system for changing lanes, etc. I had to close my eyes a lot of the time. Matt was not phased! When we arrived at our hotel we were pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. Our room is nice and spacious. When we checked in we immediately met another adoptive family. Then, we received our itinerary and discovered that we would be able to go to Hannah's Hope today and meet our little girl! We were thrilled because we didn't think this would happen until Friday. We hurried and changed clothes and then we were off! We were ecstatic and since it all happened so fast I didn't have time to be nervous. Luckily, the other family we were with volunteered to video our first meeting.