Ethiopia Court Trip: Travel and Day 1 Sunday to Tuesday

It's been over a month since we got home from our court trip so I figured it's about time wrote about it, you know, before I forget most of it.

Our trip started Sunday afternoon when we took our boys up to my parents who were going to watch them for the week. It was their nap time so we put them in their beds and told them to have good naps and that we'd see them in a week. Hoping that they'd understand at least a little of what we told them and that the fun of being at Grandma and Grandpas would be enough to help them be happy when they woke up a few hours later to find out that Mom and Dad were gone.

Nothing like starting the trip saying goodbye to our babies. Sheesh.

My dad took us to the airport (Thanks, Dad!) and we flew to D.C. that night. We stayed overnight in a hotel and then caught a flight to Addis Ababa the next morning around 11:00. The

flight lasted 13 hours. For a 13 hour flight it actually wasn't that bad. We passed the time watching movies, playing games, and trying to get in a little sleep.

We landed at 8:30 AM in Ethiopia. We walked off the plane onto the tarmac and then onto a bus...which then drove about 100 feet to the building where our luggage was. Silly airport.

The airport in Ethiopia! That's not our plane. It's behind us.

After getting our Visas (we were one of the first in line so it only took a few minutes) we waited in line for customs. We remembered to change our money at the airport as the exchange rate is best there. Which is weird to us because in every other country we've visited the exchange rate at the airport is the absolute worst. Oh well, when in Rome, er, Ethiopia...

We collected our luggage and then walked out of the airport. We found our driver, Abebe, holding a sign with our name on it, but he knew who we were before we even found him. Apparently we look like your typical adoptive couple arriving in Ethiopia. Yay for us!

So, to recap, we left our house on Sunday night, flew out of D.C. on Monday morning and arrived in Addis Tuesday morning.

Abebe drove us to the guest house where we unloaded our bags. Here are a few shots of what we saw on the drive.

Stores and stuff.

More stores and people, always lots of people walking everywhere.

And, of course, donkeys on the highway next to the oil tanker... Animals not pictured here, but equally present on the roadways: goats and cows.

We were staying at a guest house called Oziopia. It's run by a lady and her three kids, the oldest of which is Abebe. We splurged on this trip and got the guest suite which included a room with two beds and our very own bathroom. The other two rooms in the guest house shared a tiny bathroom at the end of the hall. When I say tiny I mean tiny. Picture a sink, a toilet (placed diagonally in the corner so it would fit) and a shower head in the middle of the ceiling. It was so tiny that the shower was the bathroom.

After unloading our luggage we called our agency contact, Elena. She told us to come to Layla House, our agency's orphanage, and we would go to Hilawe to see Yema. At least I think that's what she said on the phone. I did not do well understanding anyone's English over the phone.

The orphanage where Yema is staying is located in a newer part of the city and there are a lot of buildings being built in that area.

Here's Hilawe, Yema's orphanage. It's the building right in the middle with the orange terraces. Note the unfinished cement structures to the left of it and the big field with construction stuff to the right of it.

We pulled up to the gate and waited for the guard to let us in. Almost every home and building in Addis has a wall around it with a gate that is manned by a security guard of sorts.

We pulled into the yard and went inside.

Here's what the courtyard looks like out front. The gate is on the right.

There's always laundry to be washed and dried!

The orphanage has 3 floors and Yema's room was on the third floor. On the second floor we had to put little booties over our shoes so we wouldn't track dirt into the living areas. When we got onto the third floor and walked into Yema's room we could see her laying on a mattress playing with a rattle. I bent down to pick her up and the rattle got knocked out of her hand and hit her in the face. Not the best first impression from Mom.

Meeting my baby girl for the first time!

Zack meeting the girl who is going to have him wrapped around her finger in no time...

Yema whimpered a little bit at the strangers who swooped in and started doting on her. She kind of gave us stunned and confused looks for most of that day. We did our best to help her feel comfortable with her new parents. However, that day happened to be the day she needed one of her vaccinations so we got to take her to the hospital to get them. "Hi! We're you're new mom and dad! We're going to take you to get a shot!" Yeah. First the rattle hit her face and now she's getting poked by a needle.

Zack held her on the drive over. Gripping Daddy's thumb...so cute!

Such a sweetheart.

Here we are at the hospital.

I got to hold her on the drive home and she fell sleep in my arms. :)

When we got back to the orphanage we handed her to a nanny and then went back to Layla.

From there we, and another couple who was there for court this week, Eva and Brian, went to the Lucy Restaurant with Elena for lunch. The restaurant had Ethiopian and Italian food. I honestly don't remember what I ate but I'm pretty sure it was Italian. The Lucy Restaurant is named after Lucy, the famous skeleton found in Ethiopia that is reported to be the oldest found in the world. There's a museum with a replica of the skeleton next door to the restaurant but for some reason we didn't visit it. We, apparently, were just there to eat.

After eating we went to the Ethiopian History Museum. Keep in mind that we hadn't slept since early Monday morning and it was now Tuesday afternoon. Add the time change and we'd been up for over 24 hours.

And now we were going to a museum.

I had flashbacks of my first day in London with my Study Abroad group touring the local neighborhood, looking at Greek Cathedrals and wanting to strangle my professor who was taking us on that walking torture-tour. I was soooo tired.

I felt similar in the museum. I tried to be interested in what I saw but it was so hard. Who thought it was a good idea to take us to a museum on our first day?!

Here we are looking at pictures and displays and stuff.

Here's one of the many folk tales on display. This one was one of the less ...disturbing... ones.

The museum is actually located in Haile Selassie's old house. If you don't know who he is, he's a famous Ethiopian leader. You should learn more about him. But not here. This is a picture of his bedroom. Fancy.

Here we are on the steps of the museum. I'm pretty sure we're holding each other up.

After the museum we went back to the guest house where we got to take a nice nap.

This is a shot of one of the squares in Addis. The lion is the Lion of Judah. I think. I was trying really hard not to fall asleep. This was the theme of all our drives home at the end of the day while in Ethiopia.

After our nap we had dinner at the guest house: Real Ethiopian food as well as egg rolls and french fries. Weird, but good.

We went to bed early that night, looking forward to seeing our little girl again the next day!