Well, we made it to Stavanger on Thursday, August 2nd, after what can only be called the most difficult trip we've ever taken or will ever take. Seriously, we can only improve from here!
The first flight, from Sioux Falls to Chicago, was just fine. We had plenty of time, after tearful goodbyes to Ryan's parents and Nathan and Megan, to have supper at the Sioux Falls airport before hopping on our quick first flight. Joel did well, and I figured he would be so tired by the time we left Chicago that he'd just zonk out. Wrong. We had some more supper about an hour and a half into the flight, and Meredith fell asleep almost immediately after that. I managed to rock and sing Joel to sleep (as well as anyone can rock a baby on an airplane) after awhile, and for about an hour and a half, he slept in my arms. He started getting restless after that hour and a half. I hadn't slept at all, because it's not the most comfortable position to have a nineteen month old sprawled out across you, even though said nineteen month old only weighs 22 pounds, and now Joely was up and ready to go. I thought, Ok, we'll walk the aisles for awhile, or I'll stand up with him and bounce him back to sleep. He was having absolutely none of that. For hours on end, literally, he fussed and cried, and by the time we were making our descent into Copenhagen, he was all-out screaming. I could hear people around us talking about him, and I heard someone ask the person she was sitting next to why anyone would bring him on such a long flight. Believe me, I was asking myself that question over and over by that time, too!
About three minutes before landing, Joel fell asleep (go figure). Of course, he was jostled awake when we had to leave the plane. When we did get off the plane, we had to stand in an inexplicable line for about fifteen minutes. Let me tell you, this was not fun, either. No one was moving, Joel was riding in the backpack, and not happy about that, and Meredith, who had slept for nearly six of the eight hours we'd just flown, was ready to run. I could see the lines for both connecting flights and arrivals, so we moved over to the connecting flights area, but still, the line didn't move. We finally started moving, only to find that we would have to clear security before boarding our connecting flight to Stavanger. By this time, I was just a little bit panicked, because we were scheduled to take off in less than an hour.
Well, after waiting in line to clear security, we found that we would have to go through passport control as well. As we joined this line (with only one person working), I looked at the clock and saw that our plane was scheduled to leave in less than half an hour. We finally made it through security, and then were off to find our plane....when we heard our names being paged, and a voice telling us to please board immediately. Well, we were nowhere near our gate at that point. I took off running, leaving Ryan with the kids. When I made it to the gate, the door was already closed. I frantically explained to the woman at the gate that we had done nothing but wait in lines since getting off of our last flight. Thankfully, she must have believed me, because as Ryan and the kids joined us, she opened the door and let us onto the plane.
We made it to the very back of the plane, pretty much dripping in sweat from having run so fast (and we hadn't showered in hours and hours, anyway, so by this point I was pretty thrilled to know that no other new teachers from ISS were on our flight--this was definitely not the first impression I wanted to make! Thankfully, the flight from Copenhagen to Stavanger was only about an hour and fifteen minutes. We fed Joel M&Ms until the bag was empty, and then he pretty much fidgeted and cried until we landed in Stavanger. Oh, it was lovely. We definitely didn't make any friends on that flight, either.
We got to baggage claim and were able to find all of our bags except one. Of course, it was the bag with virtually all of the kids' clothing in it. We ended up getting the bag the next day, but we were the absolute last people to leave baggage claim, pushing two filled to the brim carts and pulling bags behind us as well. Thankfully, our administrators didn't give up and leave the airport! It was good to finally meet them, and walk out of the airport and into our lives in Stavanger.
All summer, I had worried about clearing customs in Norway, due to the fact that our paperwork for our work permits was so severely delayed. Little did I know that the passport control line we'd stood in at the airport in Copenhagen was our clearance! So we live in Norway now, but we don't even have Norwegian stamps in our passports. We didn't have to open up any of our bags, which I'd also been a little worried about, because of the suitcase we'd affectionately named "Target Stavanger". This suitcase was filled with ibuprofen, Vicks vapo rub, children's tylenol, band aids, antibiotic cream...all of the makings for a serious first aid kit. We had also split these things up over a couple of bags, because we'd read that bringing medications into Norway, even those which are over the counter in the States, could cause some trouble, but the one bag in particular was filled. So, it seems that I definitely worried for nothing over that one!
Unfortunately, I didn't worry over nothing about the huge dilemma that we are dealing with in regards to childcare for Joel...but I think I will save that story for another post. I have so much more to write, but I will close for now, and I hope that the next time I post, our worries about child care will be over, and we'll have the perfect person to take care of Joel. For now, we continue to pray that this will happen soon, so that I can begin to really enjoy life in beautiful, quaint Stavanger!
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