Home - Finally!

It's Tuesday evening in Minneapolis, MN, USA.

I think I'm finally getting over the jet lag, which has been brutal, to say the least. I actually slept close to a normal night last night.

We've spent the last few days trying to get sleep and to get back on Minnesota time. Somewhat surprisingly, I've had the hardest time - Sophie and Stacy have adjusted pretty quickly, but I couldn't even sleep Friday night.

Let's back up to Thursday (also known as The Long Day)...

We left for the airport right on time, and got there about 6:30 AM - about two and a half hours before our flight. I have always been a big supporter of getting to the airport very early, and today was the day that my reasons for always doing so became reality. We got to the airport, and proceeded to the Northwest Airlines counter. There was no one else in line, so we figured we'd be done quickly. We were wrong.

First, we were selected for a random checked bag search. Of course they picked the bag that was full of dirty clothes. This was a surprise, but not too bad - the toughest part was that we couldn't really communicate with the security officers. As I was standing near the security officers as they searched the dirty clothes suitcase, Stacy took our passports up to the counter to get us checked in.

I was noticing that it was taking a little too long, and when the security check was finished, I went up to the counter and found out that Sophie didn't have a ticket to get home. Yeah.
When we booked the flights to and from China, Stacy called Northwest Airlines and set us up with an infant pass for Sophie from China back to Minneapolis. They also told us that there was no charge for it. When we got to the airport to leave for China, we noticed that she was listed as an infant with us out to China. Stacy had to explain to the gate agents that we were bringing her from China, not to China. We kinda assumed that she showed up on the outbound legs because there was a limitation in Northwest's system that needed her to be with us in the computer for the whole round trip. We never for a moment thought that they had set up the infant pass for the wrong direction. Well... that's what happened.

So we spent the next ten minutes trying to explain the situation to the counter attendant, who spent all of her time telling us that they didn't have Sophie in their system (duh, we got that the first time) and that it wasn't free to add an infant pass in China. I finally said, "Alright, how much do you think it costs?"

That required her making a five minute phone call, and then told me it'd be what converted to $118. I told her that it should be free, but to get things moving along, I'd pay the fee and then take it up with Northwest when we got home (which I'll be doing next week). I gave her my credit card, and then waited for fifteen minutes when she ran the bill. I have no idea what took so long, but finally she came back with a receipt for me to sign. As I signed it, I noticed that it said from Beijing to Tokyo. I then asked if she was ticketed all the way to Minneapolis, and that what was on the receipt was just some system artifact.

Well, obviously, it wasn't, as the ticket agent started asking other agents questions, and then asked for my card back. They then contacted a supervisor, who could speak more than a tiny bit of English. She tried hard, and got everything straightened out, eventually. It took another fifteen minutes (and a new total of $250) to get Sophie's ticket and boarding pass.

I was (and still am) amazingly frustrated at the whole experience. First, it never should have happened - when Stacy called and set up the infant pass, it should have been correct (When you tell them you are adopting a child from China, it's a big clue that they will be traveling from, not to, China. Second, the infant pass shouldn't have cost us anything - it didn't get her any food, or a seat, or anything to drink, or extra luggage allowance - only an entry in the computer that she was on the plane. Third, it took 45 minutes to create a frackin' infant pass - a one minute task - maybe five minutes if the phone lines to visa were down. Absolutely ludicrous.

At this point I was pretty wound up, as you can imagine.

We went through security, threw away our water and pop (since no liquids at all are allowed through the security screen in carry on luggage in China).

After going through the security checkpoint, in the secure zone of the airport. We stopped at a duty free shop, bought some Beijing 2008 gifts for family, two bottles of water and two cans of pop. In the airport security zone. In an airport shop. Just want to make all of that absolutely clear in preparation for what happens next.

After waiting, we began boarding, and found that they were doing a search of all carry on baggage, again, for liquids. They told me that we couldn't have the sealed pop and water that we bought not 200 feet away. I was, of course, extremely upset. Then, they opened up the diaper bag, pulled out Sophie's bottle, which had water in it, and they were going to confiscate it.

I was ready to rip out his throat with my bare hands - nobody doe anything to harm my daughter. Fortunately, Stacy had a cooler head, and tried to tell them to dump the bottle out, but we needed the bottle itself to feed her. They yelled back and forth with a supervisor, and finally relented, after asking how old Sophie was - apparently a child's age makes a difference.

As we began to move along, I muttered something about "Commies", and then several people got in front of us, and I recited the line from Christmas Vacation that ends with "Happy Hanukkah" as they pushed past us. Stacy was afraid we'd get hauled off to a Chinese jail, never to see the light of day again.

We got on the plane, and we were blessed that our seating plan worked for the Beijing to Tokyo leg of the trip. We each had the aisle seat in a row in the middle of the plane, and had two empty seats between us. Sophie had room to lay down and move around, she was much happier than she had been on either of the China flights.

Once we got to Tokyo, it took forever for us to get through security.

We made it to the gate, hungry. Stacy had to use the restroom, and Sophie needed her diaper changed. After that, I went to the little noodle shop near the gate and got us a couple of items in an attempt to stave of starvation. As I got our order, people started to line up to board the plane.

There are a couple of behaviors to note here, that we saw in both China and Japan. One, lines don't exist and aren't followed. Two, there is no such thing as a lane on a road. Three, the only time that a line is even somewhat created is when boarding an aircraft, and it will begin to form about a half hour before boarding starts. They don't board by row in China or Japan.

So, by the time we had our lunch, the line to get on our plane for an eleven hour flight was already over to the next gate, and growing. I should mention here that our seats were about 4 rows from the very back of the plane.

We wolfed some of the noodles and sweet & sour chicken, Sophie barely finished her bottle, and we got in line to get home.

We got our seats (both of them, this time) - and our placement did, as planned and hoped, get us a little extra room to my left. The last few rows of seating are where the plane tapers to the tail, so there are only two seats - what would normally be the middle seat (and becomes a window, as there is only a half seat's width to the window from there), and the aisle seat. We were able to use the extra room to put bags in, and give our feet and legs the room under the seats in front of us.

Sophie screamed a few times, when we told her she couldn't throw things over the seat or pull the hair of the people in front of her, but was okay. We did the Benadryl trick, and she only slept for about three hours - not exactly what I was hoping for.

We landed right on time in Minneapolis, got in the line for immigrants, and waited a little while. After about fifteen minutes, we were called forward, and gave the sealed brown envelope to the officer. He was very nice, and chatted with us as he looked over Sophia's papers. After about five minutes, and signing some more paperwork, he told us to go on in.

There is a yellow line in front of the customs booths, and a green one behind the booths. That green line represents entry into the United States of America. Cameras of any kind are prohibited in the customs area, which was too bad, because I wanted to take a picture when Sophia Allison Ziegler, being pushed by Stacy in her stroller, became a United States citizen. As I couldn't do that, we cheered and clapped in celebration. I was very proud and happy.

We found all of our bags (we never lost a single bag through our entire trip), put them on a not free cart, and went down to the final customs check, where we declared the souvenirs and gifts we had purchased. After getting past there, we were ready to meet our family and friends who were waiting for us, and we snuck a peak at them down the stairs (we took the elevator with all of our stuff). In no particular order, waiting for us was my sister, my mom, my dad and step-mom, and our friends Nick and Kendra. Stacy's parents were waiting for us at our house (they went to spruce the place up a little).

A lot of pictures were taken, and a lot of happy tears were shed, and then we all went to our house to finally bring Sophie the rest of the way home. Of course, she slept the whole way...
We visited for about two hours, and then we all went to take a nap.

At this point I need to get to bed. I'll write another entry in the next day or two to catch us up on the happenings since last Thursday...

Have a good day!

Larry