Getting To Chile

As I stated in the previous post (read it if you want to know about a REAL house hunters international) I am going to do some back tracking with the blog.

We left our house in Columbia at 9:00 AM Thursday morning.  We drove to Charlotte, NC with our 11 suitcases and 3 carry ons.  Our goal was to make it in 10 suitcases, but at 5:00 AM that morning, Jeff remembered we forgot to pack the bedrail for Juliana.  So at the last minute we were packing one extra bag with some of the stuff that didn't make the cut!  (Side note  - they didn't weigh one single bag in Charlotte.)

We flew from Charlotte to Miami to Lima, Peru and finally arrived in Chile.  We got to our temporary housing at about 10:00 AM Friday morning - so 24 hours of traveling.  Jeff and I probably only had about an hour sleep on the plane. 

The children did as well as could be expected.  Nathan is a great traveler.  Juliana - well she is 2.  She is very busy and doesn't like to sit in one spot for too long.  She wanted to get up and walk around a lot. 

The hardest part was our layover in Lima and the flight to Santiago.  Both of the children fell asleep in the airport (it was only 12:00 AM so what else did we expect???) and so waking up two children to get on a plane was not pretty.  Two screaming children and two adults carrying them along with trying to fold the BOB jogging stroller up, and get our 3 carry-ons onto the plane - we were quite the sight! 

Our seat arrangement didn't help the situation either.  We were on a plane with 2 seats, isle, 3 seats, isle, then 2 more seats.  We chose the 3 seats in the middle and one seat on the isle on the same row. It worked OK going from Miami to Lima.  But they have a rule that ONLY 2 people can sit in the section that has 2 seats.  So when Juliana was screaming, I couldn't hold her on my lap because there was another person next to me.  That meant, that all 4 of us had to sit in the 3 row seat, so I could hold her and Jeff could hold Nathan. 

We also found out the hard way, that they serve breakfast at 3:00 AM.  While they were serving the food, the cart hit Juliana's leg and woke her up.  Thus making us cram once again 4 into 3 seats. 

So that is why Jeff and I only got about 1 hour sleep that night.  We hope to NEVER have to do that flight arrangement again.  If it means taking a super long layover and getting a hotel for the night and getting up early the next morning to fly, we WILL DO IT!!!! 

Once we arrived in Chile, our Chilean YFC folks met us at the airport.  I feel so bad, they wanted to sit down and talk over coffee about our plans.  I know I wasn't the most kind person or one who even made much sense with only having an hour to sleep and two very cranky tired children.  Thankfully, I don't think they held it against me. 

We then drove for 2 hours to arrive at our final destination.  I was never so happy to get to a place as I was that day.  I was also so very thankful for a long afternoon nap that everyone took.