Sunday, October 2, 2011

Excitement, planes, delays, roaches and bedbugs...

Well, we made it!  I am currently sitting on a super comfy couch at The Vineyard side of The Haven (the duplex where our missionary families stay during their time of refreshment here. The other side is aptly called The Orchard.)  What a blessing this place is!  It is wonderful to get a taste of what we offer to our incoming families.

Soooooooooo, excitement, planes, delays, roaches and bedbugs.
To be completely honest, we had a very grace-filled trip.  The stories I'm about to share might sound rough to some but we really never felt stressed (ok maybe one time but that wasn't on our first leg!) and had a pretty nice trip when all was said and done.

Well, the title of this post really mostly pertains to our first let of our overseas journey.  
Everything went as planned: we got to the airport on time, checked in our luggage with no hassle or surprises, said goodbye to the grandparents, got through security with ease (my hair gel that I had forgotten to put in a check-in even made it!), made it to the gate in plenty of time to let the boys get some energy out, all was well. :)

Time came to board the plane and with excitement we headed to the front of the line thanks to having little ones.  The picture above is of the boys enjoying our wait time while the rest of the passengers came on board.  Brittish Airways has little kid packs so the boys opened theirs quickly to discover a fun little activity book, pen, playing cards and I can't remember what else!  We were thankful.  :)  

The one bummer thing was that the AC was not on.  Apparently, the back AC only comes on when the engines are on.  So, we sat hot waiting.  Weeeeeeeeeeellllll, we sat, and we sat and we sat, sat, sat sat.  And because of the heat we weren't happy about that! ;)  ( Dr. Seus inspired--thanks for bearing with me.)  ;)  We ended up waiting on board for about two hours--so not fun, but oddly enough the boys did great.  There was a little girl in the seat in front and they'd played with her a bit, we played cards, took potty breaks, and waited as best we could.  At some point during that time, we hear reason of our delay: there is some sort of "little red bug" infestation in the rear cabin and so far they haven't been able to get rid of them.  Hmmm....I start laughing.  Little red bugs?  And they don't know what they are?  On a plane? SO random!  Well, eventually, they discover that these "little red bugs" are, can you believe it, ROACHES.  Yes, apparently an infestation of them.  How they were just contained to a few seats in the back and it was an "infestation" I have no idea.  

So, about two hours later they have the rear section of the plane de-board the plane (we were just five rows in front of this so called "infestation"!) to 1) be able to remedy the situation (they had all these very official looking guys come onboard trying to figure out what exactly these bugs were and exactly where they were) and 2) to give some relief from the heat for us, by now, very sweaty passengers.

SO, we de-board.  Judah exclaims, "that was so much fun," as if that was it, we got on the plane sat a while and got off, done.  :)  Not quite.  We then begin our second waiting phase at the gate--much cooler and lots more room for play.  And play our boys did.  Here are some silly pics of that wait time:




At some point during our second wait ( I think, it could have been during our on board waiting but I just can't remember) we find out that it wasn't just roaches but BEDBUGS were found in six of the back seats as well!  Ha!  Really, not sure what I have to say about that but I felt bad for the gobs of complaints that had been and were going to be logged against BA.  Not too good for publicity to have roaches AND bedbugs on board!

Well, about an hour and a half  or so later we are able to re-board the plane.  The six bedbug infested seats were removed and the frames were covered in black bags.  It was about 10pm when we finally took off.  A four hour delay!  We were SO thankful for our long layover in London, we didn't have to stress about the delay at all, we knew we would still have plenty of time.

Emergency in Row 49
Judah fell asleep pretty quickly after re-boarding (he was wiped out!) but Elijah didn't fall asleep until 1:30 that morning!  He was kept awake by Kung Fu Panda 2.  I tried to sleep here and there but not much of that was to be had by me.   At one point, I had fallen asleep to wake up minutes later to a cry for help across the aisle from me.  I quickly look over and this little Vietnamese woman's husband was splayed out on her lap with a dazed look on his face.  I call out to an attendant no where to be seen and another passenger goes out to find one.

Well, they come and after quite some time and lots of attendants huddling around this man trying to see if he was ok (his wife spoke no English and he wasn't talking), giving him oxygen, propping his feet up and trying to cool him off with wet paper towels, they conclude he simply had some sort of minor heat stroke.  He eventually started talking and was able to sit up and drink water.  And I'm not kidding, that really did happen.  Seriously!

So many firsts on this flight for me!  I'm just glad he was ok and we weren't going to have to make an emergency landing somewhere!

Well, I tried to sleep after that big event but just couldn't get comfortable.  Eventually, breakfast was served, cleaned up and we were landing in London!  Four hours later than expected but thankful to have made it thus far.  The boys slept pretty much most of the way--what a blessing!

I will write about our less exciting second leg and very exciting arrival in my next post tomorrow.  I am fairly tired and need to get to bed!  

Blessings to you, 
Janice

4 comments:

  1. Oh my Janice! The pics of the boys are great and they sure take things in stride :) Ahem... bedbugs and roaches...yikes! Glad they covered the seats in plastic bags and makes you wonder if they (bedbugs/roaches) have teeth, LOL! double yikes! Love your Dr. Suess inspiration :) Thankful you made it all in all and looking forward to the "rest of your story." Enjoy your recovery time....

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  2. WHEW! I'm beat just reading about your 1st leg of the journey! My husband & I went to Italy with our church a few years ago & I could NOT sleep on that LONG flight...I can't imagine how you feel with 2 little ones & being pregnant also! So glad ya'll are there safe & sound!

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  3. Praising God for your safe arrival! It sounds like God gave you grace to handle your eventful trip. May you and your family be blessed beyond imagining in your new home.

    Lynn Brookside

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  4. Amazing what one finds on a plane ;-)!! So glad you made it all o.k. I saw your f/b post about the delay and then the photo of your arrival.
    Blessings
    Maxine

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