Travel prep call

Oh yeah. A call dedicated to nothing but travel tips and information about our trip?! It totally happened. And I’m even more excited about going to get our beautiful girl! Now that we’re only waiting on the PAIR letter (for real this time. Lol.), I can give you more details on our trips. Well, as much as we know so far.

 

This is our first of two trips. Our “court date” trip. She does not come home with us on this trip. I know, really sad. Don’t talk to me about her after we come home from this trip unless you want snot on your shoulder. Just kidding! But seriously….

 

Our little girl is not in the capital city of Addis Ababa. She’s in a small village in the north. About a  6-7 hour journey from the capital. On this trip, we’ll go to court in her region. Here’s a little idea of what it’ll look like when we land:

 

1.      Chill in Addis for a day

2.      Travel to her area – stay overnight halfway there

3.      Hang out with her and other kiddos at the orphanage

4.      Go to court

5.      Pray we pass court and they do not need additional information

-          If we pass court, she may travel back with us to the capital (please this one!) or follow us a few days later to our agency’s orphanage for children who have passed court

6.      Head back to Addis

7.      Fly home and wait for our embassy trip in 2-4 weeks

 

Of course, there will be some training, sightseeing, and market shopping thrown in there. KC and I – as coffee addicts that drink it all hours of the day or night – are most excited about the traditional coffee ceremony!

 

Here’s a video linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4zgoR_8UJY&sns=em

 

And some info from Wikipediahttp://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_ceremony

 

While we get a day at the orphanage, we are not going to be spending time only with her. This is to protect her in case something weird happens at court and so that the other kiddos don’t get jealous. So we’ll have a lot of time with all the kids which I’m excited about. It’ll be cool to see how she interacts with others and give us a chance to see her true personality instead of being clammed up around weird white/brown people. Lol.

 

Our first trip will take longer than most families because her orphanage is so far away from the capital. Most of the orphanages our agency works with are within the capital or surrounding cities. So we’ll be there an extra day or two – probably a total of 6 days.

 

We’re excited that we won’t only be in the capital and about being able to see more of rural Ethiopia and travel where Bertie grew up. But longer days there means more money. Our in-country travel costs are tripled since we’ll be doing a lot of long distance traveling as opposed to only local trips. We’re working hard to come up with extra funds.  Therefore, if anyone needs their house cleaned, kids watched, dogs walked, etc., hit up the Collins clan! Haha! For serious though….. We aren’t above cleaning yo’ toilets.  😜

 

Even more exciting is that our first travel trip could be as soon as 8 weeks (if we get PAIR approval super-fast) or up to 14 weeks (if approval takes longer).

 

If you have any experience with international travel and have any tips, please email me! I’ve scoured Pinterest a hundred times, but adoption specific travel tips are few and far between. Any tips and advice would be appreciated friends! Our email address iscollinsadoptionfund@gmail.com.

 

Thank you all so much for everything! You are all so amazing.  <3