Thursday, May 20, 2010. Alexey picked us up at 9:30am. Nastya was there, so we said our goodbyes, and then we were off to the airport! We waited for check-in to open, then stood in line forever and got our boarding passes. After dropping off our bags, we headed upstairs to the security checkpoint. It was busy. Sardines in a can would have been more comfortable. There was no apparent line, just people all crowding close to the front. This line was about 90 minutes long, no air conditioning, and people quite literally on top of you. Once we were through, we headed to the Passport Control line. It wasn’t long- maybe 10 people in each line, but it took a really long time. They started announcing the boarding for our flight. Pretty soon, it was the last call for boarding, and we were still in line. It looked as if they were questioning each individual for 10 minutes before stamping the passport and letting them through. It was excrutiating, and we still weren’t halfway through yet.
By the time it was our turn, we approached and Jerry gave the officer all of our passports and the visas for the girls. He stared at them for about 5 minutes before asking for the adoption decree. No problem- we had it in our hands. He read the entire thing, slowwwwwly. The whole time, Jerry is trying to tell him that our plane was leaving without us. This took about 15 minutes. Again, the announcement for the last boarding call for all remaining passengers on our flight. We were really getting upset. The officer told us to follow him into a separate room, where another officer had to write everything down, by hand, into a small book. We tried again and again to tell them to hold our plane, and they were getting nervous because we were getting so upset. I really think they had no idea what they were doing. Finally, they handed us our information back, and we literally ran to the boarding gate. Luckily, there were quite a few people that still hadn’t made it through the lines, so the plane was held for about 15 minutes.
The flight to Paris was nice, about 3 hours and easy. We landed on time, and made it through the airport with plenty of time to make our 1 hour connection (flying business class really helps, since you get to go to the front of the line!). We went to the Air France business class lounge, and the girls loved it since all of the food and drinks were free.
We boarded the plane, and the look on the girls faces was priceless when they saw our seats! They could fly comfortably, put their seats back all the way and sleep, and had plenty of room to relax with the tv and video games that are provided. It was a very nice 11 hour flight. About 30 minutes before landing, they asked us if we would be home tomorrow. You have to understand that the last two times that they came to America, it was 48 hours in travelling time, and it took us 24. When we told them that we would be home in 30 minutes, they were bouncing up and down with joy!
We landed and went through customs, gave them our sealed envelopes, and then were ushered into a room for secondary screening. It looks like Immigration has really beefed up security lately, because according to other adoptive parents, they normally just stamp the passports and say “welcome to America”. We were in the Secondary Screening area with
many other people for about 2 hours before they finally stamped the passports and told us that we could leave.
Many of our family members and our close friends were there to welcome us with balloons and open arms. It was quite the homecoming. After hugging and crying a little, we all headed back to the house for appetizers and nice conversation. Two children richer, many experiences and stories to tell, and much more knowledge about our new daughters’ backgrounds and cultures. We were finally, after 6 long weeks, HOME!
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