Friday, August 10

Alrighty then, where did we leave off? Ah yes, Todd made it home from work only slightly later than we anticipated, and I took off to go pick up Lauren from her first day of sixth grade and middle school (what we used to call "junior high"). Here's a picture of Lauren with our luggage – so the amount of luggage wasn't really as bad as it seemed like it would be, huh?

We checked in at the airport two hours early for our flight, and went to grab some lunch. Funny how expensive mediocre airport food can be! (That's funny, as in really unbelievable, not funny ha-ha.) As we waited for our flight to Houston, we met a lovely woman from San Antonio who had adopted her sixteen-year-old daughter from Russia when she was about 2 years old. Sharing our adoption stories with each other made the time pass quickly until they called our flight. As we our plane took off, I remember thinking, "I can't believe this day has finally arrived! I've dreamed of it for so long!" Todd must have read my mind, because he said almost the same thing!

Our flight to Houston was smooth and arrived right on time, so we proceeded to the gate where our flight to San Francisco was supposed to be departing from only to find there had been a gate change. We had plenty of time, so that was no big deal. Our flight to San Francisco left on time so we settled in for the nearly four-hour flight. On board was a co-ed high school athletic team returning to SF from some sort of international tournament. They were wound up, to say the least, so it was a bit of a noisy flight. I wrote thank you notes for the gifts received at my baby shower the previous week, so the time passed quickly. Next thing you know, we're landing in San Francisco.

We claimed our baggage (only to find out that we could have checked it straight through to Taipei in Baton Rouge!) and proceeded to the International terminal to check-in for our EVA Air flight to Taipei. We had plenty of time, and we were starved (our Houston/SF flight was beverage service only), so we found another outrageously expensive café – thankfully, the food at this one was much tastier! Still having a couple of hours to burn before our next flight, we settled in at the gate and waited. Todd took a nap, and Lauren and I people-watched. Nearly everyone at the gate was Chinese, so we began to get the first taste of what it felt like to be in the minority for a change!

I watched them load the luggage and cargo on our 747-Airbus – everything was piled on these huge pallets and shrink-wrapped, then hoisted up onto a platform and loaded onto the plane through these incredibly large cargo doors. I found it interesting, but then there's not a whole lot else to find interesting at midnight while you're waiting for a flight!