By the time our plane landed in Addis, we were exhausted, having slept only a few hours the night before our trip, and a couple hours on the plane. This turned our to be a good thing, since our flight arrived at 7pm- we would have no trouble going to sleep that night, and so wouldn’t have to worry about jet lag. After getting our tourist visas and going through customs, we made it to the baggage claim area, to see if our bags had arrived. We surveyed all the bags going around on the conveyor belt, and did not see them. We finally spotted one of them, sitting in the middle of the floor amid the chaos of our friends from the ticket counter trying to find their entire collections of luggage. We then managed to locate the other two bags, also on the floor, and got in line behind hundreds of people with carts and carts full of bags, waiting to have these bags inspected once again by customs officials before being allowed to leave the airport. One kind security guard, who realized that we only had three bags between the two of us, led us to the front of the line. When we arrived however, the security guard at the front seemed to ignore us as he kept taking bag after bag off the carts that were lined up near the front. We tried to sneak ours in, but he pushed them away. I said to Jeff, “I wonder why that other guy brought us to the front of the line, if they’re just going to ignore us.” A woman standing behind us who spoke Amharic and could therefore understand what was going on, informed us that the bags that the security guard was currently going through (there must have been at least 20), all belonged to one family. Once this family got through, it was our turn, and we finally were able to go out and find our adoption agency’s driver.
Before leaving, I had made reservations at a place called Z Guest House. I was a little nervous about it, because there just aren’t many reviews of accommodations in Addis Ababa, and so you really don’t know what you’re getting into when you book something. This guest house, however, had a website with pictures, which is more than a lot of hotels and guest houses in Addis have. It was also very reasonably priced, and the “apartment suite” that I had booked had a bedroom for Jeff, Juan Pablo and me, and a living room, where the staff was going to set up a bed for Sebastian. When we arrived at the guest house, I was very happy to see that it was clean, comfortable, had hot water, and even internet available for a low rate. The owners immediately set out to make sure that we were comfortable and well taken care of, asking if we had eaten or needed anything else, and going to great lengths to try to get our TV to work (apparently there was still water in the dish from a storm earlier in the day, which was making everything come in fuzzy), even though we assured them that we would probably not be watching TV during our stay.
Before leaving, I had made reservations at a place called Z Guest House. I was a little nervous about it, because there just aren’t many reviews of accommodations in Addis Ababa, and so you really don’t know what you’re getting into when you book something. This guest house, however, had a website with pictures, which is more than a lot of hotels and guest houses in Addis have. It was also very reasonably priced, and the “apartment suite” that I had booked had a bedroom for Jeff, Juan Pablo and me, and a living room, where the staff was going to set up a bed for Sebastian. When we arrived at the guest house, I was very happy to see that it was clean, comfortable, had hot water, and even internet available for a low rate. The owners immediately set out to make sure that we were comfortable and well taken care of, asking if we had eaten or needed anything else, and going to great lengths to try to get our TV to work (apparently there was still water in the dish from a storm earlier in the day, which was making everything come in fuzzy), even though we assured them that we would probably not be watching TV during our stay.
our bedroom in the guest house
Our driver said that he would come between 9:30 and 10 the next morning to take us to the foster home to pick up our son. It still seemed so far away- here we were, after months of anticipation and preparation, finally halfway around the world in the same city as our son, and we still had to wait another 11 hours to meet him?! Thankfully we were tired enough that we were able to sleep away a good part of that wait, rather than running up and down the streets of Addis calling his name.
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