Well, it's Tuesday morning here in Nairobi, and the birds are chirping loudly and the sun is shining. Candace and the girls are still asleep, while John and I are downstairs hanging out. He woke up at 6:45am. Jetlag. It stinks. But what was even more stinky was our trip to get back to Nairobi...
...it all started in Charlotte. Apparently the scale that I was using to weigh everything was a bit off. 1.5lbs off, to be exact. Every single action packer but one had something taken out at the ticket counter. Arrgghh. Then it turns out that the extra baggage fee was higher, because they used the British Airways rates, not the USAirways rate. Whatever, just a bummer to lose a little more money, but I guess it's worth it in the long run. So off we run through security, to the gate and board our airplane with fairly little worries. It seemed like it was okay, with just a little bump at the beginning. Ha.
We landed in Boston with less than an hour to get to our next plane. Planes and times had changed on the itinerary, so it was going to be a close shave, but we had no idea how close. We got off of our plane in Terminal A, ran down the looooong terminal, went downstairs, and FINALLY got a bus over to Terminal E. As we entered the check in area (seriously, we have to check in again?!), we heard airline personnel saying, "Are you the Roberts?" and pointing at our large stack of action packers. What are THEY doing here? Then we found out we had to check them all in again. Arrgghh. So we hurried to do so, while watching the clock tick closer and closer to our departure time. We finally got them all checked in and ran to the security area with a airline lady pulling one of our bags and saying, "We have to hurry, hurry, keep moving!" Duh, we're trying! So we pull into security and get through the little walkthrough arch with a hiccup (I had some papers in my pocket, which is terrible, apparently). Then we found that one of the guys wanted to search one of our carry-on suitcases. Seriously, dude?! Fine, whatever, except it became apparent that all was not fine. What did he find in our suitcase? Oh, just 3 KNIVES! What in the world?! Long story short, I had packed my new knives that I hoped to take back in one of Dinah's rainboots along with socks and whatever else and put it into a checked bag, only to be overweight. So I tried in another one. And another one. Anyway, I finally ended up (a couple days later) putting them in the carryon, not remembering that I had put the knives down in there. Well, the TSA in Boston did NOT like that one bit. And promptly called the police over. I was in trouble, in more ways than one. I explained the situation and told them it was an honest mistake and that I didn't care about the knives at this point, please just let me board my plane, which was 3 minutes from departing. By now, Candace and the kids were already on the plane, and everyone on the plane was wondering who in the world was holding them up. Finally, after the police called it in and ran a check on me, they finally decided to let me go, of course without my knives. Oh, well. I ran to the plane and boarded it as an infamous passenger, with everyone staring at me in disbelief. We settled in for the 6 hour flight to London, which went off without a hitch.
Upon arriving in London, we got off the airplane OUTSIDE (can you say "freezing"?) and hopped onto a bus to go to Terminal 5. Not looking good. We had to go through a loooong security line again, hoping to grab a bite to eat and get to the gate in a leisurely amount of time. NOT! This time, they wanted to look through the same carryon suitcase and also Candace's bookbag. And by "look through," I mean, they wanted to remove every.single.item.aarrrgghhh. This time, they found a few wrenches in the suitcase. Wrenches that were approved to go in Charlotte and Boston, because they were less than 7 inches. It seems that security in London has different ideas on this sort of thing, because they were not allowed. I almost cried when they went into the trash. You have GOT to be kidding me. Can this day get any worse? Which, apparently...it can. We ate a very expensive bite as fast as we could and ran to the gate, only to catch the last bus to the airplane. But hey, at least we weren't the last ones on the bus! This time, we boarded the plane to find the Masters family on board, which was nice to see a friend close by. And other than waiting an hour to depart, the flight went very good, with the kids doing well and sleeping a little bit, too.
We arrived in Nairobi a little later than expected, but what else is new. TIA, right? Probably the scariest part of the whole trip was landing in Nairobi, as we swerved back and forth upon touchdown. Can anyone say "CENTERLINE!"? Whew, be glad to be off big planes for a while after that one. We pulled up to the terminal and stopped ten feet short of the jetway. Nice. "Hey, you missed it!" So we got off the airplane, went down the stairs, walked 20 feet and went back up the stairs and walked right down the jetway that we just missed. (sigh) We had a very nice young lady who helped us with our bags all the way down to the baggage claim, so that was nice. And immigration was a breeze as well. We got to the baggage claim to find our friend Kurt there in his pilot uniform to help us with bags, which were already starting to come in off the plane. We were feeling very optimistic about everything until we saw two action packers come wrapped in plastic bags...it seems they didn't know how to put the lid back on properly, so they just wrapped it up. Okay. Whatever. THEN we saw it. An action packer in a plastic bag. With NO LID. You.have.got.to.be.kidding.me. And it was our overweight one. Arrggghhh. Oh, yes, things can get worse. We were short an action packer and a car seat. When I went over to the baggage service desk to report it, the girl looked at my tickets and then at a piece of paper and responded to my query with, "Oh, yes, we have a message about them. They were left in London." Seriously?! So we filled out the paper and SUPPOSEDLY they arrived on the flight last night and will show up to the house this morning. We shall see.
So, all in all, we are here and are all okay. We're tired, but the kids slept well Sunday night (12 hours) and not too bad last night. Candace and I unpacked the action packers yesterday morning while the kids were still sleeping. Now it's a matter of putting away all of the stuff that is stacked all over our house.
We're excited about being back in Nairobi, and have already been out to Nakumatt to restock the pantry and get some Indian food.
Praise the Lord for getting us here, even though it seems like we went through the valley of the shadow of death to get here. :)
Blessings to you all,
Nathan, writing on behalf of
