Travel Plans
I sit here with the airline page opened to the perfect series of flights. Leaves Friday morning at the crack of dawn to get to Guatemala by early afternoon. Arrives back Monday night before midnight, so we can both work on Tuesday. Pricier than I'd hoped, but anything in the lower end of our budget involved 30+ hours in flights with at least one 12+ hour connection and at least one red eye connection. These aren't unreasonable, just more than the bargain airfares I prefer. I'm all about the $25 tickets.
For one flight plan in our menu of choices, we had the option of flying from here to NYC, then to Atlanta, then to Guatemala, all over the course of 16 hours. For a fee of $6 more, you could add Detroit and Charlotte to your flight, with a mind blowing 4 connections over 37 hours. That ticket gave us less than 24 hours before boarding a 33 hour return adventure. No thanks. I'd say "who on earth prices these things??" but then I remember that it's people with degrees in my field. So, um, yea.
Much more appealing, for about $50 more we can connect through NYC on the way there and Atlanta on the way back with about 3 hour layovers at each for a total of 8 hours travel time each way. Not too shabby.
So here I sit....
(insert 5 minutes of pacing and shuffling and fretting...)
And they're booked!!
We're going to Guatemala! Happy Thanksgiving!!
Edited to add: I guess I should have noted that we're going in about 2 .5 months. Not this Friday. Sorry for the confusion! I can't even imagine what ticket prices would be for this Friday. Plus we have DNA approval, but not results yet and we aren't supposed to travel until we have results. So in a few months.
6 comments:
Congrats on your trip. Take lots of pictures! Are you taking Katie on this trip?
Big hugs and thoughts of safety with your travels.
Happy Thanksgiving!
-B
Hooray! Congratulations!
YAy!
I'm sure that I missed this in a post, but how does the whole Hague thing in January affect your adoption?
Ellen, it's a big scary question mark, basically. The Guatemalan government first said it would cancel anything in progress as of 1/1/08, then after a huge uproar about what that would mean to the kids and demands that they have some kind of plan to provide care, they backed down and said that all in process could finish, but have yet to make a real statement about what "in process" means. Does it mean we've filed some paperwork in the US (the US definition of "in process" is to file the first form, which we did in July) or does it mean we've filed a power of attorney to start our case for a specific child in Guatemala (we did that 10/22). Or does it mean we have DNA done and Family Court interviews done and are under final review (we hope to be done with DNA in December and possibly even Family Court, but they're closed for a LOT of holidays in December). There's no clear definition and the Guatemalan congress was supposed to vote on it this week but the new congressional schedule just posted and it's not on there. So there will be no answers now until January, at the earliest. Apparently Berger, the president how is very anti-adoption, was threatening to veto it once it was on his desk and so there were protests in the streets to hold the vote until they could talk to him. So that's that.
The US did sign the pre-cursors to the Hague which means they'll officially "join" 12/31 and that they will then have to be effective 4/1/08. But from the US side, the grandfathering rules are very clear, and we were covered as of that first paper we filed in July 2007. It's the Guatemalan side that is still open to new rules and interpretations so we are just praying and trusting.
Well, I've been praying for you guys! I guess you just keep going until it's impossible to go any further...
Oooh! Voting today! Today! Today!
Gah!
Lots of prayers that God gives these legislators the wisdom to set policies which protect the mothers and children, with stronger protections against the unthinkable but a process that still provides a quick process to placement in a forever home for those that are placed for adoption in good faith.
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