Well this has been an awfully big adventure so far and we haven't even really gotten started. The good news is we made it! The bad news is our bag with everything for Isabel is traveling Asia and has decided not to join us in Beijing yet. The trip was a bit rocky for us. We almost missed our connecting flight from San Francisco due to a little bit of dumbness on our part. While all of the Chinese passengers were ticketing and checking in at the counter, we believed that we could just check in at the gate. Now in our defense, someone official looking told us that since we weren't checking bags to just go the gate for check in. I bet they laughed and laughed as they saw our little travel group trot off so happily down to the gate. We stood there until almost take off and then started to wonder if maybe we had made a bad decision. We were happy to be able to actually still get on the plane and our flight was just fine.
We made our travel group wait almost an hour and a half for Brian and I and one other person to file a claim report for our missing bags. I am heart sick about the lost bag, everything was in it, but I guess all we can do is move on and figure out how we are going to clothe and feed her. At least we had all of our clothes and documents in our carry on bags. To add insult to an already injurious day, our toilet overflowed and flooded our bathroom at four o'clock in the morning. Brian and I are staying in the Rob and Laura Petry room enjoying our twin beds, which seems to be standard fare here in China.
On a more positive note, Beijing is amazing. We have seen many things already and look forward to seeing more of the city, as well as the stops on our trip. Despite the bathroom our hotel is beautiful and Brian and I have found an authentic german beer hall to have a beer and french fries. This seems to be our best bet so far for food, vegetarianism isn't thriving in China, yet.
We will leave here on Tuesday morning to fly to Changsha and transition from tourists to parents (Monday evening your time). It has been fun to be here. There are many french adoptive couples in our hotel here and we see them at breakfast bonding with their new children.
That's all for now from the
other side of the world. Hope you are all doing well. Rosie, please give our
girls a big hug and a kiss for us. Show them our picture so they don't forget
us.