Post Scriptum

Our flight from JoBurg to Addis went well. Checking-in was a monster, as the US has now put some of the immigration paperwork burden on the local airlines.

We were a little worried that we would not make our connection in Addis, since the flight was late. As has now become customary, there was no real boarding, so since they scattered us around the airplane, we had to hustle with the other passengers (including a few who did not speak a word of English) so we could all sit together.

At one point, all 6 of us (or so we thought) were all asleep when, out of nowhere, I felt this huge pinch on my elbow, when I woke up, the guy sitting next to Yves and Adis was pointing toward Caleb's bassinet. When I looked in his direction, I saw my son, all smiles, standing as tall as could be, almost ready to launch into the air. I am still trying to figure out how he got out of the restraint. Needless to say, we tried to be more careful for the remainder of the flight, although this might have happened again (it's unclear).

Once we got to DC, we got separated between US citizens/permanent residents, and others. Of the 13 non-residents in front of me, not a single one had their paperwork filled out correctly. Thankfully, since we only needed to fill out one customs form, I was able to bypass these people and join in line with Kim. We then had to go to another immigration post to process my paperwork.

I will spare you the details, but let's just say Officer Choi decided that he was going to go through every single page of the immigration book on me. It wasn't fewer than 20 minutes before I was able to clear that hurdle. Needless to say, Kim was getting pale over there. Next time I fly abroad, (1) I am not landing in DC, and (2) I am bringing every single immigration document I have received ever since I came here.

Once we were out of that area, it was time for retagging for our next flight, where we learned that our flight to DC had been cancelled. Our options were (1) wait until 10:30PM, or (2) make a connection to Charleston WV continuing on to Chicago.  We went for option 2. Bad mistake. Once in CRW, we learned that our flight to ORD had been cancelled. Since we had just had a long trip behind us, Caleb was running low on food, and Kim sure as heck did not want to stay in CRW overnight, we decided to, you guessed it, rent a car and drive the 8 hours to Chicago. We finally made it home around 1:30AM. Caleb slept the entire way, only to wake up at arrival. Kim worked her magic to put him back to sleep, after a well deserved bath.

There might be a few more posts, but on behalf of whole crew, I wanted to thank all of you for following us on our journey. It was great to read everyone's comments. We look forward to seeing you all soon.

Cheers!