Arrived in Brussels about 5:30 this morning. Have been waiting for our plane to depart to Newark, NJ since then. Ate a Belgium waffle for breakfast and Sam had a chocolate pastry. Will be boarding soon. On our way from Duoala we had an American family sitting behind us. The two children were very well behaved and asked lots of questions about the airplane. The parents were very patient and kind. They commented that they had been traveling for a long time and still had a couple of long flights until they reached Nashville. We asked where they were coming from. The man was a doctor, his wife a nurse. They were doing missionary work in northern Cameroon, where it was advised that we don’t go due to security reasons. They had been there for a year and would be home for at least the next three years.
Oh, as we fly toward the west this is one of those never-ending days. We boarded the plane in Brussels around 10 a.m. Just before boarding I heard the name McPherson called to come to the security desk at our boarding gate. I went and found out my name was one of the lucky draws to have an extra security check. Oh joy. The up side of that is I get to board the plane sooner than the rest of the passengers. So, I had my luggage gone through again and got the “pat down”. But, it was nice to get on the plane early without having to jostle through the crowd trying to get to my seat.
We’ve been served a drink and snack. Then a short while later were served lunch, followed by a little ice cream cup. All three of us have taken naps, it’s still an hour and half until landing and it’s only 11 a.m…..in Newark, NJ where we will be landing. We’ve all been trying to watch movies while we fly but keep dozing off. Guess it’s time to try to sleep.
After a 8-1/2 hr flight we landed in Newark….just after 12 noon……..2 hours (as per the clock) after we left Brussels! We had to go through immigration and customs. No problem with immigration but with customs we had to go through a more intensive luggage check again; all three of us. They stopped Johnnie and questioned her about plant, food, agricultural items in one particular bag. She assured them she didn’t anything but they dumped her bag out anyway…and of course, did not find anything. After she got everything back into the bag we were able to move our luggage back to the United desk to be reloaded onto the plane. Then back up through the security line to be able to get through to our gate. The security line was long and took a very long time to get through. We found our gate and had time to get some water and snacks before time to board the plane.
Since we are flying United in the States we know we won’t be served a meal so it was easy to decide to sleep. If I hadn’t traveled like this before I would wonder if I was ever going to get caught up on sleep! A short 3 hour flight to Houston where we had just enough time to get to a different terminal and to our gate with only a few minutes to take a bathroom break before boarding to go the last leg of our trip for tonight.
Arriving in Oklahoma City about 8:45 we met Johnnie’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson at the airport. We went to pick up our luggage only to find out that it didn’t arrive on our plane. Not any of the three pieces came. The agent found out that it would be on the next plane arriving at nearly 11 p.m. Not going to wait for that! So, we made arrangements to have them delivered the next morning. Off to Sara’s house to spend the night.
Sunday, November 8, 2015 ------- After a good night’s sleep on Sara’s couches we both woke up really early and had to wait until everyone else got up. Luggage arrived about 10 a.m. for us. Johnnie got hers also. After church service and a meal with Sara and Amy’s families we got all our things together to finish up our travels with a 4 hour drive home to Amarillo. End of this trip to Africa.
No comments:
Post a Comment