We headed to the airport around 9:30 Friday morning. My nerves seemed a little more intense than the last time we headed to the airport for an international flight. Perhaps, it was because we were driving ourselves and my dad dropped us off last time. I'm not sure. It was probably a combination of things at this point. Did you remember that I hate flying?
We were planning to park on the north side of the airport in the "green" lot. GPS was locked in and we arrived to our destination. Except that it was full. Use Blue Lot. Ok. No problem. I quickly typed it into the GPS. Rerouting. Eric calls out that he sees a sign for this blue lot, but it's left... and we're on a one way and have to turn right. I assured him it came up on my GPS and that going the opposite way was probably because we can't go left. Mistake #1. We followed my GPS almost out of the airport to some random office space. You have reached your destination. Except that we hadn't. We made our way back to where Eric had seen the sign and headed into a parking garage. Floor #4...and a man motioned us to the right. Except there were no spots. So floor #6...here we come.
At this point, it's after 12 and our flight boards at 12:55. What?! We took another detour to the shuttle waiting area thanks to me not reading a sign. Mistake #2. We stood with our luggage and stroller outside, breathing in copious amounts of second hand smoke, and waited for what seemed like forever! Cough, cough. I just kept thinking...we HAVE to get on this shuttle or we could miss our flight. Our flight was set to leave at 1:50 p.m. Thankfully, the shuttle picked up every single person and baggage in the surrounding area...and even a few more on the way.
We made it to the Delta terminal and stepped inside. I pulled up my Delta app (which had just sent me a notification about boarding soon) and our boarding passes disappeared. Ok, odd, I thought. It was just there seconds ago. I searched for my trips. You have no upcoming trips. Very funny. Ok, stay cool and collected. I pulled up my e-ticket confirmation email for our confirmation number. I typed it into the Delta app. No trip found. Fine. I tried our ticket number. No trip found. Ok. Fine.
We stepped up to the check in computers and typed in my name. No trip found. Alright, fine. My cool was LOST. I began to cry. I found a Delta employee and explained the situation. She ignores my distress and says I need to scan my passport. Ok, it never asked me for my passport. I explained to her again that our boarding passes were just on my phone and now they won't pull up on the computer screen. She says the same thing. "Scan your passport." Alright, so either 1. She's a robot only programmed to say one thing or 2. She is annoyed when she has to see 35 year old grown women crying because they're not following directions. Leaning towards option #2 based on her rude tone with me. But, I'm coming off a ROUGH Thursday so my emotions were shot. She finally took my passport and scanned it. Guess what?! IT DIDN'T WORK! Scanned it again. NOT WORKING. At this point...I'm beginning to believe our identities were stolen and this whole thing is a hoax. The employee finally gets my passport to scan after her sixth attempt. She has to change computers altogether to get Eric's passport to scan. But alas, we can check bags!
Now for security. We waited in a long line and slowly made our way up to check our personal items and carry on. Oh, by the way, it's 12:55. Plane is boarding. Great. Eric and I walked through...no issues. Wait. Where's his backpack and the carry-on? There they are...in a bin... off to the side. They were flagged. We basically hang out in a holding pattern for someone to check our bag because there are 3 bags before us. The airport actually brings in 3 more people to check flagged baggage because there are a whole bunch of us with questionable items. We're everybody's favorite travelers. Ha! Our carry-on was ALL food so she scanned my cheez-its, applesauce pouches, and popcorn. They're all legit. Eric's food also received the OK. We're back on track. It's 1:05 p.m.
Eric and I quickly used the restroom. I forgot my passport and phone in the stall...only to remember after I leave that I forgot my passport and phone. Mistake #3. Thankfully, no one used the stall after me and I was able to retrieve them ASAP. Sidenote: Should I ever be in charge of anything important? Because my batting average at this point in the game was LOW. We immediately headed from the bathroom to the boarding line...literally feeling like we had just run a marathon.
The flight attendant on our side of the plane was super accommodating and moved a young (and tall) man on the inside of our seats to an open seat that gave him more room. This, in turn, gave us 3 seats to share between the two of us. A win-win for everyone! The flight was great! Our trip ended up being a polar route of about 85°. At 90°, we would have stopped to see Old Saint Nick himself! Total flight time was shorter than anticipated at 12 hours and 25 minutes. I drank my weight in tomato juice. Yum! Eric's drink of choice was cranberry-apple. Unfortunately, he sacrificed an entire cup of this AND an entire cup of coffee to the floor of the plane. And my brand new backpack and brand new WHITE converse sneakers. A total accident of course...but makes for a funny story. Could these two items be more stain-worthy?! Haha! Ironically, my backpack smells like soy sauce. Hmmm...wish I could wash both right now.
We landed in Beijing earlier than anticipated...which worked out well because we had to wait a while to get through immigration. This time, we had to scan our fingerprints beforehand. You scan your passport, scan your left fingers, right fingers, and both thumbs. It spits out a little slip that says OK. I've never been more excited to be OK in my life. I'll be the Okayest person in the world if it means I can get through an airport without hiccups. Once we made it through immigration, we traveled down to the baggage claim. Easy stuff. Bag #1, bag #2, and...wait. Where's our stroller?
We did not bring a stroller last time, but they turned out to be a secretive commodity at our hotel and it is a nice thing to have around. Sooo we bought a new umbrella stroller and checked it in at Detroit. Perhaps that was the last time we'd see it. I found an airport employee at the end of our carousel. I showed her our baggage ticket. The man beside her started saying something to me. Not English. I kept saying I didn't know. The girl finally pulls out her Google Translate app and types "Is it big?" I tell her it's a stroller. She looks at me blankly. I begin to push an invisible stroller. She points behind me to a sign that says "Oversized luggage claim." Ohhh BIG!" I repeat. The man beside her literally throws his hands up in disgust at my slowness. Haha! We make our way over to this little section of the airport and there is our trusty stroller. In one piece! All by its lonesome!
We finally exited the airport and found a sweet lady holding a sign that says "Murray Family." She escorted us to a bathroom and then to our car that would take us to the train station. She even exchanged some money for us from her wallet because we hadn't had a chance to do so yet. The guides here are some of my favorite memories of China. They are all SO kind and accommodating!
The drive wasn't long and we were taken straight to the entrance of the Beijing Train Station. We were told we'd have to show them our passports and train tickets to enter. Then, we'd find a large screen with our train number.
We stood back and watched people for a while... trying to get our bearings. We couldn't tell exactly where we were supposed to enter. I claimed ignorance and walked up to someone at the gate. She spoke English or at least knew the word passport. We made it through security in a total of 20 seconds. Winning! Once you're inside the station, there are 13 large waiting rooms. If you find your train number, you should see a waiting room number beside it. Many trains leave from the same waiting room. Our guide from Beijing explained this all beforehand and it was SO helpful to know ahead of time! Here was our waiting room. We had just less than 3 hours to wait here for our train to depart.
We had no idea what was being announced the entire time we were in the waiting room. However, when a big group of people moved towards the gate with the same train number we were watching, we took it as a green light to board. It gave you a boarding platform number and we took an escalator down to platform 14. We found our train and then made the long walk to car #3. We paid a bit more for First Class tickets and I'm so glad we did. Lots of rooms, no crowds, and the chairs reclined! It was 8 a.m. (US time) so we had already reached the 24 hr mark of being awake. Prior to this leg of our trip, I'd say Eric and I had less than 3 hrs of sleep. It was a bullet train so we reached speeds of up to 250 mph! It was a very smooth ride though.
We made it off the train and began the search for our provincial guide. This is always my least favorite part of the trip. There are about 4 different exits at this train station so we had no idea which one we should go to and where our guide would be waiting. We started wandering before a man found us and tried to get us to ride with him. Haha! Not in a creepy way...but taxi drivers can be a little pushy. But, have no fear...we started speaking English to him! So he totally had no idea what we were saying. Then, a police officer noticed us and walked over. That always makes me a little nervous. The two men began talking about us and we kept saying we were looking for our guide. Haha. It's such an awkward thing. The police officer pointed to a sign behind him that said "Taxi." I told him we were waiting for our guide. Because that helped!? Haha! Why I kept saying this, I'm not sure. Then, from the parking lot came a man running with a phone on speaker. "Erica?" Hmm... not quite but close enough to make me think this guy might be our ticket out of here. Finally, he told the person on speaker phone to speak. It was Danielle, our guide! She came sprinting from the opposite direction...with our Murray Family sign. We had just come out the wrong way. I turned to the police officer and told him "Xiexie." He repeated it and just laughed and shook his head. At least I could say thank you in Chinese! Haha!
Our guide was so sweet and helped us get checked into our hotel. The night van ride was pretty with all of the lights! The hotel itself is pretty swanky. Marble everything. Watch out for wet floors! It was now 11 p.m. (China time- they're 12 hours AHEAD). We settled into our two-bed room (so funny) and smiled when we saw the crib already there. Aliza girl!
We tried talking with the kids, but our internet and VPN situation was spotty. After realizing we couldn't get FaceTime to work with the kiddos, we both hit the hay. Hopefully we'll get the computer thing taken care of while we're here. We'll check back soon, friends! We meet Aliza on Tuesday. It's Sunday now and our schedule is wide open!
oh my, you may not have given birth to your new child but this experience could count as a difficult birth of your little sweetheart .... good luck sweetheart
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