The Sullivan Family

Well we finally made it to Addis Ababa Ethiopia, It was quite the trip. We started in Milwaukee, WI just Bridget and myself with 4 carry-on’s and 11 checked pieces which contained mostly donations for the orphanages. We tried to get Delta to donate the extra baggage cost to no avail, so we thank Bridget’s mom and dad for that generous donation.

We flew to Detroit in which the flight took twice as long due to weather. Our connecting flight to Amsterdam was at final boarding before we were even able leave the first plane. We ran about 32 gates with 4 bags to make the next flight to Amsterdam, just to have it sit and wait for weather.

This delay turned the 8 hour flight into 9 and we then missed our straight flight to Ethiopia from Amsterdam. Bridget also just realized her brand new glasses had NO prescription, how does that happen, then as luck would have it security confiscated all of her saline solution, so now my wife was blind ;D KLF Airlines booked us on a flight to Dubai, and bumped us to business class. This was a huge multi-level plane, I must say business class was very nice. Fully reclining seats, personal entertainment systems, lots of space and extras, I actually enjoyed that flight, and that says a lot coming from me who hates flying. This flight took about 6 hours, or “a little over 2 movies” ;D

We hit Dubai and had about a 6 hour layover, we hung out, I drank too much of the extra strong coffee, we played some games, took some pictures and browsed the stores in the airport.
We then waited to board our “dated” plane on Ethiopian Air for the last 3 hour leg of the flight.

This is where the drama hit, They were weighing peoples carry-on’s and charging extra or denying peoples items, everyone was getting upset and it turned kind of stressful, we waited until the line was gone at the very end and they asked us about all of our 11 pieces that we had checked, they asked for the coupons for the bags, but Delta never gave us these “coupons”, they said we had to pay for them or they would not load them on the plane, and wanted cash! We tried to get them to call delta to no avail, we ended up finally paying again for all of the bags again but were able to get them to take credit, we are hoping for a refund, “and another upgrade for the inconvenience!!”.

Three hours later we finally made it to Ethiopia. We are tired but so glad to finally be here. I must say the drive from the airport to the guest house, was quite overwhelming, with all that was going on in the streets. It’s just a whole different world..

We are so thankful for this journey and the ability to be able to go through it and adopt a beautiful boy. We are so so so blessed, and I thank the Lord for all of it, none of this would have been possible for us with out Him paving the way.

Mark-