Thursday, June 12, 2008

Our TRIP!!

Here I am sitting at the computer (true high speed internet) and with the sun shining in the window and everyone is sitting in the living room behind me chatting about all kinds of things! It sounds nice… comforting.

June 9, 2008 we were up early in the morning tying up loose ends! Finished moving our mattresses and blankets, signed our papers for the selling our vehicle, piled in the Bakkie (truck) and Condor and headed to the airport with… Lazarus, Leila, Ndemufayo, Anna, Larnelle, and our family (and all of our luggage). We stopped on the way to pick up Fenguito and Vivas (a couple of Angolans who wanted to say goodbye at the airport). At the airport we weighed our bags (and were given grace on our weight!), had our bags plastic wrapped and checked in! Then we spent the time spending our bucket of change on drinks for everyone, and sitting at the restaurant visiting. Then it was time to say goodbye...! We then went through immigration (with our properly stamped passports… Praise the Lord) boarded the plane for Johannesburg and were on our way. In the Jo’burg airport we wandered around and waited for our connecting flight and after a 3 hour wait we boarded the flight for Frankfurt Germany. We flew Luftansa (not a very nice plane at all… cramped and no personal TV sets to entertain people, and in Pete’s row of seats none of the controls worked so they couldn’t even listen to the movies or music!). Behind the boys was an extremely drunk man (who managed to drink more alcohol on the Luftansa flight) and he began to sexually harass the stewardess and said some very nasty things to Tavis and punched Trevor’s seat when he tried to lean back to sleep. Finally the stewardess came to me and asked about whether or not the man was bothering us… and so when we told her what he had been up to they took him to the back of the plane somewhere and had the police waiting for him when we arrived. I didn’t get any sleep through the night, so I felt pretty yucky when we arrived in Germany!

June 10, 2008… 5 AM we arrived in Germany, it took a while to find our gate and we waited in a long line up to clear the inspection counter (xray and all)… once we were settled the kids laid on the seats and got some sleep (well except for Tavis)… I happened to have 10 Euros in my purse so I went to McDonalds and bought 5 cheeseburgers and 5 small soft drinks. We were a bit worried about what our Air Canada flight was going to be (especially after expecting that the Luftansa flight would be better than the Air Canada)… however we were pleasantly surprised with a beautiful brand new plane… lots of leg room, individual TV’s, and excellent service! Very impressed! After a long and pleasant flight to Toronto we collected our luggage (ALL of it arrived safely and still plastic wrapped) and without any issues cleared customs (they didn’t even look at anything or ask any questions)… we then exited the secure area and found my brother Roger ready and waiting to spend the 7 hours of waiting time with us in Toronto… what a great blessing! He took us out to a Greek restaurant and got us out of the airport for a few hours! Then we visited at Starbucks in the airport until we needed to go through security again. While waiting to board the plane to Moncton, Meagan’s Science teacher showed up… we were wondering if he didn’t make it, but he was flying in from Saskatchewan and managed to be in on time to visit with us for about 10 minutes before we had to board our plane! He is a money collector and Meagan had gotten him Namibian and Angolan money… which was very exciting and I made placemats for his wife! It was nice to meet him… Meagan and him spend a great deal of time online laughing and carrying on, so it was good for her to meet him face to face!!! After a couple of hours we touched down in NB… tired and dizzy from all the flying we headed out to the baggage claim area and around the corner I could hear all these people yelling and carrying on… rounded the corner and there was Talitha JUMPING… UP and DOWN…. UP and DOWN!! My mom and dad, Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Randy and Talitha came to greet us!!! Again all of our bags arrived safe and sound… we packed into the two vans they brought to pick us up in, and headed for home (in Sussex)… I drove one of the vans, on the right side of the road and under 140km/hr!!!!! We arrived sometime around midnight; I had a shower and then crashed until 11AM the next morning!!!

So here we are… tired, burnt out, and taking the time to relax (sort of). I am going to get my hair done today by a REAL hairdresser… that’s exciting! I better go and get ready… just wanted to let you know how our trip went!
Thanks for your prayers, thoughts and greetings!! We appreciate you all!
Love,
Charlene (for the Knightly’s)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great! I cant wait to see your family when you come to Kamloops. We miss you!

Anonymous said...

Welcome home!! As I read over your last several weeks' posts, it is exciting to see how everything worked out for you. I can understand the anxiety, of course, but it's great to see God taking care of you all the way!

Marcela said...

Welcome to this side of the world! Except for weirdo drunk man, I am glad the trip went well. I like to travel through Germany because they have good chocolate I always get at the airport :) I have a new blog in case you ever want to hear about my exciting life in med school. Love you guys!
marcelainmedicalschool.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to hear you had a GOOD trip back to Canada -- albeit a tiring! When you're back in the Loops we must get together -- I want to see if you've picked up a funny accent lol! I have a great supplier of biltong from a South African family living in Cranbrook if you get homesick for Africa! :)