We are in Vietnam

Sunday, July 22, 9:30 am

Sorry for the delay in posting. Around 2:00 am this morning I tried to update the blog but had some issues because it was in Vietnamese not English. Hopefully we have that corrected now.

We spent 31 hours traveling from door to door. We had a brief and pleasant plane ride from our local airport to the US hub but then sat on the runway for almost two hours waiting to take off due to storms in the area. We had a pretty darn unpleasant ride from the US to Seoul. The trip was 15 hours, of which 14 we experienced severe turbulance. It was like being on a roller coaster for 14 hours. I kept thinking the turbulance would stop at any minute but no such luck. It actually lasted like 14 hours. There was such movement that I still feel like I am moving 12 hours after we got off the plane. At one point, our earth angel cousin Carolyn who has accompanied us on the journey, said that the in flight screen was reporting headwinds of 150 miles per hour. No wonder we felt like we were flying in a hurricane.

We reached Seoul with barely enough time to make our connection to Ho Chi Minh City. We were running to the gate to get there when they were boarding. We had an awesome trip to HCMC. The plane was relatively empty, so we each stretched out on an aisle, and it was smooth sailing.

We got to HCMC airport around 10:30 pm Saturday night, went through three security and customs checks and met our guides outside of the airport. The airport was a hub bub of activity and the word "hot" doesn't even begin to describe it. It is supposed to be 100 degrees all week and the humidity is extreme. I am thinking the pool looks like the perfect place to hang out.

We are not picking the girls up today, Sunday, but will pick them up tomorrow. This morning we got up around 5:30 am after having gone to sleep around 2:30 am but we were jet laggy and starving. We went to the hotel cafe and Al and Carolyn had the traditional American breakfast (eggs and bacon) and I had traditional Vietnamese Pho (soup). We then went grocery shopping in the store in the hotel and went back up to our room to get some things settled.

At 11:30 this morning we will meet the families that the agency was escorting just before us. They will be leaving this afternoon to go to Hanoi for the last leg of their trip. We'll get to meet their new babies as well.

Then this afternoon we'll walk around the hotel area to get a sense of our area - find shopping and restaurants, etc.

Tomorrow, Monday, will be a big day. We'll go as a group to two orphanages. We'll pick up the babies and then we will have five official appointments, including the Vietnamese Governement Giving and Recieving ceremony, passport offices, doctors, etc. They have told us to expect to be still working until late Monday night. It will be a big and confusing day for the girls I am sure.

Anyway, that is the scoop for now.

More later.

Love to all,

Tina