Hello from Beijing!

We are finally in Beijing!!   There is only word to describe 13 hours on a plane; brutal!  The extra money for upgraded seating was worth every cent.  Not sleeping the night before was a waste because we barely slept during the flight.  We got up and walked around a lot and spent about an hour standing in the middle of the plane talking to another adopting family.  About 95% of the plane was Chinese nationals so its not to hard to spot another American adopting family.

I was worried about flying with United since we heard horror stories about them.  All of our flights were on time but the flight crews are absolutely miserable.  We never asked for a thing so we didn't have any issues with them but watching them yell at other passengers whenever they spoke to them was awful.  The TVs in the headrests were a blessing but 3 movies and 5 episodes of Big Bang Theory didn't even get us close to China!  The second half of the flight was the worst, everything hurt!  I felt like I was actually pregnant by the looks of my swollen ankles!!  I told Brian I'm not going back home, there are DaVita's in China, I don't want to get back on that plane in 2 weeks!!  

 Once we landed all the aches and pains started to go away.  Beijing airport is massive, I have never seen so many people in one place.  Our guide Grace called a car to take us to our hotel so we wouldn't have to wait for the other families to arrive.  All of the stories we heard about the traffic and bad driving in China are very true!  I can't imagine how we are going to ride in a van with Ava without a car seat.  Its scary to think about. 

Our torture chamber!  It was neat seeing NYC in the background yesterday.

Almost there!!  We traveled over 7,000 miles

It's 1 a.m. here and we are wide awake.  Its weird to be so tired but you can't sleep.  We need to be ready for breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and will start touring Beijing at 8:30.  Today we will tour the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square.  If it wasn't for the never ending flight I'd say we can't believe we are really here.