Travelogue

The Roth Amstutz Odyssey began on Monday morning, July 2. The vans were packed full of luggage. The Ohio summer sun shone brightly, the morning air was fresh and clear. Both the Roth and Amstutz families were gathered and ready to drive with us up to Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland. We made a brief circle and said a prayer and we were off.
The biggest questions were about luggage: would the luggage, especially the 2 boxes, make it all the way to Ethiopia without damage and without being lost? Would they let us check out 10 huge pieces of luggage/ boxes all the way through from Cleveland to Addis Ababa, in spite of our 24 hour layover in Frankfurt? Were our pieces overweight, in spite of weighing them on our small bathroom scale (we knew the one box was overweight, would they let it pass)?
The officials at United seemed slow and uninterested in customer service (we’ve enjoyed Southwest and West Jet too often). We were given good news and bad news; yes, they would check our luggage all the way to Addis, but some pieces of luggage were overweight. In the end we were charged $100 for our overweight baggage but the luggage was on the plane and we were on our way.
Chicago O’Hare International was unpleasant. The area where we were to sit and wait on our layover was hot. The air was motionless and the sun beat into the waiting area. My mini-crisis came when we were ready to board a member of the Lufthansa airline staff said I couldn’t take my carry-on on board. I just brought in on board from Cleveland! I made the quick decision to not argue the point. Wanda threw a pillowcase at me and I quickly stuffed a few of my belongings I would need at the hotel in Frankfurt. I spent the next two days wandering around with a half-full pillowcase in tow.
Chicago-Frankfurt will be a flight to remember, a night which will live in infamy. A lesson for our family; don’t bring the maximum carry-on on board: backpacks, Barbie “purses”, dolls, blankets, etc. We all brought too much stuff on board. We were strewn across one whole row of the plane. Getting in and out of our seats for any reason took effort. In addition, the boy in the seat in front of me decided to recline his seat fully from the beginning. The back of the seat was in my face the entire trip. Yes, I know, simply ask him to move it forward. But I played the part of a long suffering good guy. It only made me grumpy.
Our little party of five entered the Frankfurt airport in the early morning at 6:45 (German time, our bodies were still at 12:45 North American time) dazed and confused. The girls instantly noticed smokers in the airport. They seemed to be smoking everywhere! But it was only at designated spots. We made our way through customs with our carry-ons hanging out everywhere upon us. I worried about my checked carry on and our luggage. But a very nice Lufthansa woman assured me that it was all in a secured holding area, not to worry. I decided to take her at her word, we were all too tired to care. Next was to find a shuttle bus to our hotel. I used a phone to call our hotel’s front desk and she told me one was coming. But I was either too tired or she was not clear enough, anyways we waited at the wrong area for about 45 minutes until I called again and realized we needed to be about 300 meters up the terminal. Everyone took the whole fiasco well but Abby. She had had enough of snafus and was mad as heck and wasn’t gonna take it anymore . . . *sigh*. Yes we found the shuttle and the hotel and by 10 a.m. we were in our hotel.
So we slept. Ideally we should have stayed awake the whole day but if there is a bed in your room and you can’t think of a reason not to lie down on it . . . Thank the Lord for Andy and Manuela Martin who came up by train from Basel to keep us company for the evening. They provided us with an excuse to get out. We walked and talked and eventually found an Italian restaurant on a street corner. The pizza was great and I got my good German beer (I ordered “ein gut Deutsche bier” which got a few laughs. Apparently the phrase “good German beer” is redundant, because all German beer is good). Andy and Manuela were only with us for 4 hours but they lifted all our spirits so much, hanging out with friends was very heartwarming.
Our final leg of the journey to Addis Ababa actually went pretty well. The flight was better and when someone reclined their seat in front of me, I did what any good “passive-ist” would do, I reclined my own seat fully. I did feel sorry for the woman in front of me. The man in front of her was quite large, over 300 pounds easily and he started it, reclining his seat back fully. Fortunately the Lufthansa attendants made him raise his seat upright for the meal, so the woman did hers and I did mine. He never reclined it back again. We saw Addis by night as we landed at 8:45 p.m.
There was lots of good news at the end of the journey. All of our luggage arrived, including my carry-on bag and all its contents. Thank you Lord and thank you Lufthansa! We were also met by the folks who were coming to meet us; John Yoder, Tamara Hayes, Mr. Mekonnen and Ms. Yeshi. The only hiccup was that the airport officials wouldn’t let our girls in without visas. So we ponied up $60 and got 15 day visas for the three. But late that night we were in our new home, exhausted but happy to have arrived.
[Apologies to all those who have waited anxiously for word of our arrival but we have been in full gear since we arrived. We were gone from Saturday until Tuesday down south seeing important projects and meeting partners we will be working with. I’ll be adding blogs in the coming days to ‘catch up’ and then hope to blog on Sundays so you can count on at least once a week, Mondays, a blog from us. Feel free to comment on our blog at the end of each entry.]