So, my flight out of
Oklahoma City was scheduled to leave at 4:40, meaning that my kids and were
running last minute errands throughout the metro area. At 10:30 I called the homestudy agency to see
if the homestudy would or would not be ready by noon. If it was ready by noon, I would have time to
pick it up and still get my kids to my friend Trisha’s house and arrive at my
home by 2:00 for my husband to pick me up.
However, if it was after noon I would have to let Jeff get it
later. The agency told me it would be
ready by noon, so I started to make my way to their area of the city. At 11:45 they called and said it was going to
be a little after noon. So, the kids and
I stopped for lunch. At 12:15 we were
just around the corner from the agency when they called again to tell me (you
guessed it right?) it was still NOT DONE!
I was pretty frustrated because I had driven all the way over to their
place, which was a good 45 minutes out of my way (making for 1.5 hours of
unnecessary driving). However, to their
credit, they offered to meet me at a location on the way from my home to the
airport at 2:15. I wasn’t holding my breath,
but I agreed.
Okay, now fast-forward,
kids are at Trisha’s and Jeff’s picked me and my luggage up from our
house. We were running late to arrive at
the location, but true to her word, there was our case worker, with the
homestudy (and the extra copies I requested) in hand! I was so thankful! We went immediately to the nearest post
office to send the dossier (minues the I71H – immigration approval) to our
Agency and a copy of the homestudy to USCIS (requesting the immigration
approval still missing from the dossier).
Then on the way to the airport I began to read the homestudy. Oh.
My. Word. There were errors glaring at me. Some were typos others were bigger
errors. There was one point where my
parents were introduced as Doug and Nancy (correct) then in the sentence
afterward referred to as Paul and Linda.
I was mortified. Once I got to
the airport and checked through security I called our Agency to let them know
what I had seen. They told me that
Ethiopia won’t care, but USCIS (the one we need that missing piece of paperwork
from) might. If they did, then the
errors would have to be fixed and resubmitted.
So, right now we are praying they overlook the unsightly blemishes I
saw. I must admit too that I stopped
reading after the error mentioned above, I was so discouraged. So, who knows what other errors may
exist! At this point I don’t even want
to know.
So, in spite of all my running
around, I did arrive in plenty of time for my flight. However, the flight was delayed. We had a 3 hour layover in Chicago, which
should have been just fine. But… um…
yea, no. Once we did leave, we arrived
in Chicago with 45 minutes to get to our next gate, which I knew was never
going to happen even as we tried to do it anyway. I knew we would have to recheck-in through
security because we were transferring to the international terminal. When we arrived at the security check point
we had 10 minutes before the flight took off but they would not allow us into
the terminal because the doors close 30 minutes before the flight is scheduled
to leave. We were deflated. Even worse, only four of our team were
stuck. The other two had flown out of
Dallas and had not been delayed. They
were on the flight without us. And one
of them was in a near state of panic because of it.
So, we were sent back to
the American flight desk to try to rebook another flight. The simple thing would have been the same
flight 1 day later through the same airline, Turkish Air. However, that flight was full. So, the dear lady, Joann, at American tried other
options. She found us something but then
came the problem. You see when we were
checked into the flight in Oklahoma City, not only were we checked into the
flight from OKC to Chicago, we were also checked into the flight from Istanbul
to Ethiopia. So, Joann needed someone at
Turkish air to release us from that flight.
Problem? They had all gone home. She tried, bless her heart, to call everyone
and anyone to get the error fixed, but to no avail. So, we were stuck in Chicago with no ability
to rebook our flight until the next day when the Turkish airline attendants
returned.
The four of us who were
stuck were actually in good spirits about the whole thing. Or at least we were all really good at
putting on a front. I know I was feeling
anxious. But I quelled my inner-child
who wanted to screen “It’s not fair!” and made light of the situation, if only
for the sake of the other four. So, from
outward appearances, anyway, we were pretty upbeat and hopeful that all things
would work out the next day. We found a
hotel for the night and headed that way.
The traffic was horrendous that evening, though, and it took a LONG time
before we were at the hotel. We also did
not have our checked luggage, so we were living out of whatever we had the
sense to pack in our carry-on luggage. I
was actually pleasantly surprised at what I found in mine. Note: this was because my checked luggage was
too heavy and I pulled stuff out of it at the last minute to put in my carry-on,
not because I actually planned well J.
The next day we ate breakfast
at the hotel and decided to explore Chicago some, since we had the day to
kill. We took the CTA (subway)
downtown. That was an adventure! I have never taken a subway in the US before. I’ve taken one once with my aunt on an
overseas trip ages ago, but it was only to say we had done so, not to actually
go somewhere. We ended up walking around
the city and even saw a movie before we headed back to the hotel to collect our
luggage and return to the airport to rebook our flights. It was a pleasant day, even if we were all
anxious to move along.
When we finally got about
the business of rebooking our flight we found while we were unbooked from
Turkish air for the flight causing problems the day before, we now had bigger
problems. All the flight options that
were present the night before, were now filled.
The soonest we could get a flight to actually get us to Ethiopia was
Friday morning at 8:30 AM (note: our original itinerary had us there Wednesday
morning at 12:30 AM). We were
crushed! We had plans to work at the orphanage
Thursday and Friday. This new flight
ruled out Thursday completely and would leave us exhausted as we arrived to
start working immediately on Friday morning.
As a last ditch effort, we asked if there was a way to attempt to fly
standby on the full Turkish air flight that night without losing our confirmed
ability to fly with the other itinerary.
They agreed to let us try. However,
we soon realized we had no ability to eat inside the airport since we didn’t
have boarding passes. Again, Joann came
through! She got us gate passes that
allowed us back into the domestic terminal to eat dinner before we headed to
the international terminal to try to get on that evening’s flight. We had dinner at Chili’s, relaxing and
praying to be able to leave Chicago that night.
The flight out was at
10:15 and we were instructed to come to the ticket counter at 9:00 to try to
get tickets. But we were anxious and
headed on over around 8:00 to see what could be done. Wonder of wonders, we actually GOT
TICKETS! We were ecstatic! And so VERY THANKFUL! Turkish airlines also assured us that our
luggage was on the flight. We went
through security, and I even had time to facetime (very quickly) with my
husband and kids before the flight took off.
We would connect in Istanbul
to our final flight to Ethiopia the next day.
The flight to Istanbul would be 11 hours, then the final flight another
5. We also had a comfortable layover in
Istanbul. We were on our way. And all I could do was think… I’m nearly
there.
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