Our journey home was an experience of many frustrations. When you arrive at the Bole Airport in Addis Ababa, you go through security to enter the airport. Because of the power outages, we had purchase a "portable" battery pack for Pete's CPAP. It took us at least 30 minutes before they decided that they would allow Pete to bring it, but only if it was in his checked luggage.
When we got to our departure gate, we passed through security fairly quickly. Then found out our flight was delayed. We found a seating area where Michael was able to stretch out, and both boys fell asleep. We were awake. The flight ended up being delayed about 3 hours. The boys slept. We were awake.
We finally got going, and made the fuel stop in Khartoum, Sudan. This stop was supposed to be less than an hour. It ended up being about 2.5 hours. 77 + degrees outside the airplane, no AC inside the airplane. They had oversold & taken on too many passengers in Khartoum, then had to find and remove the luggage of those who they needed to de-plane. Melting, we were finally on our way. We were assured that all of our flight arrangements would be taken care of by the time we arrived in Amsterdam.
Our flight arrangements were not taken care of. We went to what they call the "transfer desk" (for people with connections). I was first in line, aside from the people already working with agents. The agent advised me that they were "too busy" at that station, and I would have to go to the next one. Got to the next station, and there was a long line. When I finally got up to an agent, she said that the changes were already made, and that she would just need to print boarding passes. During conversation, I discovered that she had 40 years working with KLM. Yet, somehow, it managed to take her 45 minutes to print our boarding passes; with the wrong seat assignments. She also gave us a bunch of coupons that would be worthless to us, because we no longer had time to use them. We had to rush to our gate, through security, and have the gate agents fix the boarding passes. Apparently, European airports are not air conditioned (according to another traveller). Amsterdam was no exception.
We were originally to go through Minneapolis. Due to our delays, we went through Detroit instead. We were sitting at the bulk head behind the first class cabin. Michael had to go potty, and both aisles behind us were blocked by service carts. I did what I expect any mom would do, and tried to take him to the forward lav. The flight attendant actually turned us away! I couldn't believe it (I know that this lav is generally reserved for first class, but I expect exceptions for handicapped, elderly, and children). For any of you that have had a child that is bashful about using the potty, you probably understand that this meant Michael wouldn't be going potty at this time. I was just lucky he didn't wet his pants. Then, when we landed, they actually made the coach class wait to get off the plane until first class (maybe they always do this, but I don't recall seeing it before). UGH! I thought stearage sank with the Titanic.
By the time we got through immigration, we had just enough time to get to our flight. This was challenging, because by now, the zipper was broken on one of our back packs. As we neared the gate, we saw that the flight was to be delayed. Michael was quite hungry, so he & Pete went to get a burger. I settled in at the gate, and approached the agent to ask about correcting our seat assignments. She told me I would have to wait for the other agent to arrive. When the gate agent arrive, she walked up and said "Get in line people, we're boarding". I walked up and asked her about our seating, to which her response was "You'll have to take care of that yourself onboard". So, I asked if she could at least make a general boarding call, since my husband and son left the boarding area (I thought this was a VERY reasonable request). She said "That's not my problem".
The highlight of this flight was definately the other passengers going to our city. One went to see if Pete & Michael were coming, many others helped carry our stuff (and the food Pete & Michael had gotten), and by the time we were on the airplane there were 3 seats (one in front of the other two) waiting for us.
Just to top it off, Sid let loose with a blowout while we were on final. So, before we could get off the last airplane, we changed a diaper. It was so nice to be home! We were greeted by Pete's sister Barb & her family, as well as our neighbor Molly & her girls. It was very nice to have them there. We went home, and Barb made us a nice supper. Thankfully, that first night home, Sid slept very well.........
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