We Have Our Flights and a Basic Itinerary!!!

After two days of a LOT of talking to the travel agent, we have booked our flights! The Ethiopian Air return seats DID become available, but we opted to go ahead and take the Emirates Air flights anyway. It ended up only being $650 more, not $1200 like we were originally quoted (there's our provision from the Lord!!!). Emirates is known as somewhat of a "luxury" airline, with large seats and lots of services and amenities. They have a new fleet of planes and have excellent maintenance records (given my fear of flying, this was a HUGE selling point for me!). I've been told over and over again that flying Emirates is the BEST airline experience you could have (other than maybe First Class on the Concord, but something like that is not even in the realm of possibly reality here, people!!!). On the way, we will spend one night in the UAE city of Dubai, which, as I understand it, is the wealthiest city in the world and QUITE a snazzy experience!

This is what our flights to Ethiopia look like:

Day 1
Leave RDU at 4:50pm
Arrive JFK (New York) at 6:50pm

Day 1-Day 2
Leave JFK at 11:00pm
Arrive at Dubai (UAE) by 7:45pm (THE NEXT DAY! It is a 13 hour flight, but with the time zones, it seems like almost 24 hours later! This is what we call jetlag, people!!)

Day 2-3
Spend the night at the airport hotel in Dubai (courtesy of the airline!!)
Leave Dubai at 8:25am for a 4 hour flight
Arrive Addis Ababa at 11:30am

It LOOKS brutal on paper, but other traveling parents who have flown this airline tell us that the opportunity to get off the plane and sleep in a bed for a few hours is PRICELESS and you end up arriving in Addis to meet your child rested, fresh, and NOT like smelling like 18 straight hours on a plane!

My understanding is that it will take us a couple of hours to get through immigration and customs and pick up our luggage and then we will go to our hotel to get checked in. Once we are checked in, the orphanage director will pick us up and take us to Kidane Mehret to meet Tinsaye!

We will spend the first two days getting to know Tinsaye and enjoying the city together at museums and historical city sites.

On the third day, we will have our US Embassy Interview Appointment. We are also hoping to visit Layla House and perhaps even AHOPE.

The fourth day will be another free day -- we'll probably do our shopping at the Merkato on this day and return to Kidane Mehret for Tinsaye's going away party and to deliver letters from other waiting parents and take pictures of children.

The morning of the fifth day, we will check out of our hotel and go back to the US Embassy to pick up Tinsaye's passport w/ Visa; and then head to the airport to get ready to leave that evening!

Our return flights look like this:

Leave Addis at 7:35pm

Arrive Dubai at 12:45am

Leave Dubai at 2:00am (yes, just an hour and 15 minutes later!)

Arrive JFK at 7:45 am (seems like just 6 hours, but it's still a 14 hour flight -- it's just that with the time zones, we get to live 8 hours of life TWICE!!)

Leave JFK at 12:40pm

Arrive back home at RDU at 2:15pm

Whew!!!! Unbelievable! Like my Mom keeps saying: "This is happening ... this is really REALLY happening!!"