My grandmother dropped me off at Hartsfield this morning about 5:00. That is pretty dang early. I thought that I was giving myself more than enough time by getting there that early, but I was wrong. Almost 200 Redcoats were already there and United Airlines was totally not prepared for such a rush. The line was long, but once the nice people at United saw the crowd, they called in reserves to man other posts behind the desk and the line began to move. The highlight of the airport was running into Renee and getting to give her the hug that I didn’t get to give her yesterday after the funeral. She is so strong! I am so proud of both Renee and Keith and how they’ve handled this unexpected tragedy.
After I got checked in and through security, Bob and I took the nifty “Hartsfield Transit System” out to ‘E’ Concourse to exchange a little money. Dang the exchange rate!
We made it back to our concourse (‘T’) with 15 minutes to spare before boarding. I love it when a plan comes together.
The flight to Chicago was smooth and uneventful. I’ve been to Chicago four times previously, yet had never flown into or out of O’Hare, so that was a new and cool experience. The approach to the runway is the best part, you come in over lake Michigan and then over the heart of downtown.
After killing three hours in O’Hare waiting for our flight, we boarded a HUGE jet (747) for Beijing. Most of the Redcoats were not lucky enough to get into business class, first class, or economy plus. Instead we were all back in economy or as we came to call it; “Steerage”. Each row had ten seats and two walkways. I am having a hard time relaxing b/c a flight attendant stops by every ten minutes to stuff some more stinky airplane food down my throat. But, hey! I should be happy to get it. We are currently somewhere over the Artic Ocean near the North Pole. It is about 8:30 am China time, which means it is 8:30 pm Atlanta time. I hope my body doesn’t freak out due to the terrible time change. I have managed about two hours of sleep in flight.
Our arrival at Beijing International was close to on-time despite out flight being delayed for 45 minutes on the tarmac at O’Hare. The experience with customs and immigration in china is slack compared to the U.S. I was able to walk right through. All my luggage made it to china. Yay! Tom had a pack of peanut crackers in his bag that was enjoyed by someone working to move our baggage from the plane to the luggage belt in the airport. Welcome to a communist nation! I am using my Camel Pak, minus the water bladder, as my man-purse while in China. I have to keep my money and my passport on me all the time. If I lose everything but my passport, then at least I can still get home.
We got checked into our hotel and put our stuff down and then met in the lobby to board a bus to go to our first dinner in China.
We left the hotel around 6:00. Bob may have offended one of the waitresses when he exclaimed she-she after the lady brought out a dish. We found out later the shey-shey = “thank you” and she-she = “dragon lady” or the Chinese equivalent of bitch. Ooops! They thought his curly blond hair was cute, so they giggled and all was well. One international incident averted... for now. I can understand how people in china are skinnier than Americans. It’s b/c food actually tastes good in America, so we eat more of it. Sure, I will survive this trip, but I will most likely lose significant weight while I’m here.
I got to bed around 9:30. Our a/c didn’t work, so we had to open the window while we slept. This would turn out to be costly to my health.
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