And then we were home....

Good Morning sports fans... As I type this, I am sitting on our couch watching our cats freak out on each other - They will live I am sure... :) We have arrived home - only one day late. We survived 15 and change hours on the plane from Beijing... Why so long you say? Well, we (I use "we" loosely) had some minor mechanical problems while we were on the ground before takeoff which they had to take care of... Got those "fixed" and we started back on our journey East.

Our little princess didn't fare too badly on the trip - considering we were couped up on that plane for so long. We managed to get three seats for the trip home, so we made the best of it to setup a little "tent" for Sylvie to try and get some sleep - I think she was the most rested of the three of us after all was said and done. (It is amazing what you can create with some airline pillows and blaknets and a little enginutity) :)

After we touched down at YVR, we hustled through the masses to try and deal with the "dreaded" immigration and collect our bags to be received into Canada. Let's just say for all you people going through this in the future - Find a rep when you hit the bottom of the escalator and are staring at the reams of people in the immigration lines (There are MANY people... M.A.N.Y...) After we asked the rep we found he said
"You are Canadians returning with an adopted child?"
"Oh yes"
"Okay - You don't need to go through that gong show... Over here please..."
"You lead the way..." :)

Suffice to say - The line we got put in had significantly less folks around - We were just about to settle in to some seats when another agent approached us -
"You are returning with an adopted child?"
"Yes we are"
"Come up here and we will get you through next..." :)

Chop Chop... We didn't have to poke or pinch her to start her crying - We just got the fast track because we had the baby - Oh yes. Got the paperwork looked at - Everything was in order so we got that signed off and were on our way... Immigration - check. :) We collect our bags and headed for our connection flight - This is where Friday went a little sideways...

Let's just say that after M...A...N...Y... hours with Air Canada (we flew AC from Beijing where the trouble started) we still had to deal with them to get home. When we landed we were told that all of our connections were taken care of - which I took at face value knowing that we still had to deal with immigration... We started through YVR to get to the domestic travel area to catch our connection (which had been bumped because we were two and a half hours late). Dealing with some of the staff there almost had me coming out of my skin - and I am a pretty reserved traveller.
"Oh sir - YOU seem to have missed your flight"
"Uhh... NO... YOU seem to have missed our flight for us..."
"Well, we are oversold on the flights tonight now, so we can put you on standby..."
"Uhhh.... NO... You can bump someone else and get us home... Thank you very much..."
"Ooooo... No sir we can't do that - You will have to go standby..."

Do you see where we are going here??? At any rate - After we did not make the next standby flight because it was full - I spent some nice quality time with some of the AC customer service staff and they arranged for us to hit the Delta and get some eats and some sleep. We were confirmed on the next flight first thing Saturday. .. Which after our day Friday (two Fridays actually - because we crossed the date line again) was a quiet blessing... Early to bed to get some shut-eye and we were still up at 1:00am (time change licks...) Got our stuff repacked and back to the airport at 5:00am... Quick flight home and here we are... (well, several loads of laundry later and much unpacking, but you get the point...)

So, we are night one in at home and we will see how we all fair over the next while with time changes and schedule shuffling... Stay tuned for the next instalment which should be coming soon.

Ciao

C & J & S

(and the kitties now too...) :)