The Last Leg

Last night, we arrived in Guangzhou by airplane. I had been kind of nervous about Emily's first flight but the only thing she was put out about was sitting in the seat by herself. She eventually wound up in my lap and fell asleep after downing pretty much every goldfish we had and a few "Digestive Cookies" we had saved from the Chinese flight to Zhengzhou for just that reason. She never actually had to get back in her seat which is what this picture is of. When we landed, she was still passed out on me and her warm little body and the late hour combined to help me catnap a little too.

I was a little distressed when we were getting on the plane because a couple of men were jabbering away angrily with some flight attendants and yelling and pointing at two other men who were coming off of the plane with another steward. They apparently had some kind of altercation before we got there that left one other man with a bleeding eye that turned into a shiner by the time we were getting our luggage from the turnstile. All the parties ended up getting back on the plane and traveling. I have to say that I can appreciate the U.S.'s stricter laws about such things. I don't believe either of them would have traveled or even been free to go for a while in the U.S. after something like that on a plane. It's my understanding that there isn't any tolerance at all about things like that. Imagine how happy I was to find that one of the men was sitting across the aisle from us. Well, his disposition was a lot different toward Emily -- he smiled and cooed at her. She promptly ignored him. I knew I liked this girl. :)

On the way to the famous White Swan Hotel, there were a lot of crying babies, a few sleeping ones like our little world traveler, and one new aunt who lost her airline food thanks to the flu. Needless to say, getting here was a bumpy ride. But its very nice at this hotel. Their main business is that they are close to the American Consulate and therefore, pretty much every adoption trip regardless of agency ends here. They've capitalized on it too. The rooms have child sized foam beds available and they are very big on taking care of their Americans. The city itself is gorgeous. As one of our group put it, its hard to believe its part of China (what we've seen so far has been very different). The other thing they do for adoptive families here is give a special gift. We found ours in our room this morning -- Barbie with her Chinese baby. Emily was fascinated with it and kept asking me to open it but I distracted her with juice and put it away. Next to it, you can see my Mountain Dew. It's packaged a lot the same but it was flat and rather nasty. I don't think I'll be getting any more even if it is only like 35 or 40 cents.

This morning we went for the physical for her visa. She also had to get a TB test since she's over 2. That set the tone. She didn't so much mind the needle but the nurse took hold of her arm and pulled it forward (gently enough) and that was it. Everybody finally found out she has voice. She screamed at every one of the next three stations. And she was the one who screamed the loudest and longest. Even the rep was distressed until I told her she'd be fine once these strangers stopped touching her.

The ENT doctor finally just shook her head and wrote on her file. She had managed to check everything but one eye and got our rep to ask us about her vision there. The final doctor was a little older and just had to listen to her chest and heartbeat, etc. She calmed down a little for that one but the woman obviously had some experience and knew what she was doing. She was very comforting and fast. As we walked out of the building, Emily looked right at me and grinned big. She was like, yes ma'am I am outta there.

We had American style food at a place named Lucy's for lunch. This kid was born to live in America. She is a French fry fan! The rest of the day is ours. We'll probably join the tours in the morning and we'll be doing visa paperwork in the afternoon. I think a little chill out time is a good thing right now. And I actually feel (with good reason) safe enough to explore a little. Our rep gave us all her little tips, for example, no water or salad at Lucy's. I had my burger plain. Keep praying for us that all goes well. And our thanks for all of your prayers so far.