Day two.....we've landed

I don't think I can recap two days in Ethiopia into one so I guess I am going to have to be one day behind.  So we arrived in Addis Ababa at 7:30 p.m. Sunday night (remember we left Sat morning at 7:45 a.m. EST).  When we got off the plane we had to get in line to get our entrance visa.  I'm no international traveler but I think for some countries you have to get your visa before you arrive but for Ethiopia you can get it at arrival at the airport.  This went smoothly so then we proceeded to go exchange our money.  We heard this was the best place to do so you were sure to have some birr.  We decided to exchange a big chunk of our cash - we had to take all cash on this trip as credit cards can rarely be used.  After we exchanged our money we went to get our luggage.  They had a big belt and we watched and watched.  Tim and I ended up looking at different ends and suddenly I had someone asking for my luggage tags.  I was confused as I didn't know, does he work for the airlines, why he is so insistent to help I'm perfectly capable but at any rate, he wanted to help so I showed him the tags and told him what I was watching for.  Lo and behold he found two of our four!  Tim had gotten one and finally I spotted our last one that was off the belt sitting on the floor.  I tipped the guy who helped and then Matt, Annette, Tim and I got in another line to exit to meet the person picking us up.  We had to send our luggage through another scanner to LEAVE the airport - I thought this was so odd.  We found our pick up person pretty quickly and started following him.  Again this was very confusing, we had our luggage and so many people were taking it and following us and some got in the van with us and everyone wanted a tip and we didn't know if the men knew our driver and that's why they were helping or what.  We tipped the ones who got in the van with us but not the ones who stayed.

It was getting dark by the time we left the airport and it was about a 20 minute drive (to the best of my one year recollection!) to the Grand Guest House where we would be staying.  I don't think it hit me at this point but I'll talk more about traffic in a few days.  We got to the Grand Guest House and as it turned out our driver was Johnny, the night receptionist.  I had heard a lot of wonderful things about Johnny and how helpful and caring he was.  We got checked in and went up to our room.  We were on the third floor, Annette (and eventually Michelle) were on the second floor and poor Matt was all the way on the fourth!  We had a fourth traveling family that would be arriving on Monday night, Mike and Paula and they were also on the fourth floor.  We didn't learn until later, but all the rooms were a little different.  All had a bathtub but some not a shower.  Thankfully, ours had a shower, no shower curtain!  It was the type you can unhook and I was so grateful for that, I am NOT a bath person, but hey, really, I was grateful we had a bathtub and  a flushing toilet!  Our sink had the drain stop but the thingamabob that lets you keep it open or closed was not working.  The next morning we mentioned this to the desk person.  I didn't want to seem like we were complaining at all, we wanted to be very good guests but I was getting a little tired of holding the darn drain thing so the water could run down.  Well, it seemed pretty clear no one was coming to fix it, hmmm, FINALLY it hit us, well dummies (us), just take it out and leave it out!  We got somewhat settled and unpacked as even though it was only about 10:30 (and I slept so much on the flight) we were tired!  And, we were told that they were bringing our kiddos TOMORROW!!!  Wow, I was surprised at this as all our information from our agency said the kiddos would be brought on Tuesday.  We figured we would have Monday to do any shopping/sight seeing but we were quite OKAY with that!  Annette was a little nervous as Michelle had ALL the baby supplies with her in Atlanta and she was feeling bad that she, grandma, would get to see G before Michelle.  I told her not to worry, we had plenty of diapers and formula.  Off to bed, literally and figuratively!!

Oh, before I literally go off to bed, here are some pictures of the Grand Guest House and some of our "view"!  They were not taken on this first day in Ethiopia because it was dark, but this will help you see where we stayed.  There was a gated entrance right at this sign and the entire place had a wall around it with barbwire fencing.  When you walked in through this entrance, there was a nice court yard before walking up the steps into the lobby area.  Also in the court yard was a guard house!

A view of the gated entrance and the guard house:



And a couple pics of the street nearby: