40 Hours of Travel

We are home! The only 2 words to describe our trip is "suffering" and "perseverance". We left the apartment at 9 after David came by to get the keys and say goodbye. We made it to the airport by 10:30 for our 12:55 flight. That's when the suffering started. Due to mechanical problems on an earlier flight to Moscow, the plane had to land in Iceland for repairs and mandatory crew rest. That started a chain reaction of delays that affected us. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 9 something at night. So we had 11 hours of waiting at the Moscow airport. We camped out with our bags between the front windows and a phone sales kiosk,where it was quiet and less bustle. Thomas got 2 short naps in during the day but by the time we were boarding he was super tired and fussy since it was almost 2 hours past his normal bedtime.

On the plane he was fussy and was shrieking before we even pulled away from the gate. By the time we got in the air, he was asleep. He didn't sleep well and kept tossing and turning. We couldn't sleep as we had to stay vigilant that he didn't roll hims

elf off the seat, past our pillow barriers we built to try to contain him. He slept a good 9 hours and awoke with a little less than 2 hours left of the flight. He did well until we had to sit down for the descent and landing then more fussiness and shrieking.

We got into Atlanta close to 1 in the morning. The story was that Delta was going to put up everybody in a hotel until the next morning, when we could get the next connecting flight. They did have about 4 Homeland security personnel processing passports, but for a plane load, it took about 45 minutes. Because Thomas was immigrating to America, we also had to process with the immigration folks all of his Embassy paperwork. The 2 am staff was probably the "C Team" versus the "A Team", as that process took an hour and half. So by the time we got our luggage, went through Customs and got to the Delta counter we were one of the last people through, and all the overnight kits were gone. Delta had re-boo

ked us on an 8'ish am flight to Nashville but we had them push it back to a 1 0'clock flight as I couldn't see us going to the hotel for 2 hours and then coming back to catch the early flight, we needed to try and get some sleep.

We had checked 2 bags and had 2 carry-ons. The counter agent wanted to re-check both bags, but we needed some overnight stuff and more diapers. Thankfully, he let us keep a bag after we said we needed to get some items out and he saw the package of diapers in the suitcase. We then had to go from the International terminal to Ground Transportation, which were the two furthest points from each other. At that time of night the peop

le mover train was shut down. So we had to carry our bags and Thomas the length of the Atlanta airport.

When we got to Ground Transportation we found out the last hotel shuttle bus had left at 3:30 am and it was close to 4. Thankfully, another hotel's shuttle driver offered to drive us for $5 a piece to our hotel. We were a little apprehensive as it w

as too good a deal but thankfully it worked out and he had us at the hotel door in 5 minutes. We checked in and it was a nice room and a big comfy bed. Unfortunately, everything had caught up to Thomas and he just had a complete melt down...nothing would soothe him. I finally strapped on the carrier and we walked the parking lot while he cried. We watched the sun come up. Finally, around 7:30 he fell asleep in the carrier and we headed back inside.

We got about an hour and half of sleep before the alarm went off. It was nice to take a shower and we had one spare change of clean clothes left. We had packed so that we threw out all of our socks, underwear and old clothes in Moscow (we had packed old

ones that I had saved up over the year) so that we would travel lighter on the way back. I had packed a spare for a "just in case moment" and we had the moment. We took shifts going to the breakfast buffet. We then checked out and caught the shuttle to the airport.

At the airport, we found out our Nashville flight was delayed an hour. So more waiting around an airport. Finally, boarded the flight at 2:30. Thomas was the bad kid on the flight, crying most of the time when we couldn't distract him. Thankfully, it was only a 35 minute flight. My parents and brother and nephew met us at the airport. We were very glad to see them. We were walking zombies at this point. We got home around 4 and were in bed for the night by 7.