We arrived in Beijing exhausted, had a quick night sleep and then set out to learn many new things: people who live in communist countries have no sense of entitlement so they are amazingly patient when they are almost crashed into on the highway, run over on their bikes, and invited out of the bathroom stall before their pants are zipped up...talk about clusters of people who don't seem to mind at all being crammed into one city and space. We spent hours in traffic, went to the Great Wall, more hours in traffic, went to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and more traffic (traffic so scary it's best to just sleep - which was easy for this jet-lagging girl!).
So, we are at the starting step of the Great Wall of China (tour), heading up a narrow walkway of hundreds of uneven steps with hundreds of people. Every 20 minutes of stair-climbing we reach a turn or a point where we think we are almost there, but no…we had no idea that we had about an hour of steady upward steps. Eyes down, as each step changes from short to very steep, slanted right to slanted left, with many variables and with the heavy breathing of others behind us and before us as our climbing beat, we neared the top. The higher you go, you find less people surrounding you. As I approached the top, 48 hours from getting our baby – our ultimate destination…I heard “Final Countdown” (song) in my head…I’ve been replaying over and over for days, and thought, this is it! What a parallel to our adoption process…steady, seemingly never-ending, challenging climbing with unexpected terrain. And then, there we were with the blue sky and dusty mountains for miles as our backdrop. We made it! And soon we will make it to our ultimate destination…Elita! So soon I am waking in the night picturing her in her crib at the end of my bed and can imagine kissing her soft baby skin! (I've been up since 3 AM, thinking about her, despite exhaustion that I cannot put into words!
We are having technical difficulties with posting photos (slow internet), so hopefully soon I can go back and add photos to the text, but for now, at least you know what is going on...we are going to meet Elita at 8:30 tomorrow morning...13 hours from now, which is 8:30 Sunday night for you!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Beijng!
We arrived in Beijing exhausted, had a quick night sleep and then set out to learn many new things: people who live in communist countries have no sense of entitlement so they are amazingly patient when they are almost crashed into on the highway, run over on their bikes, and invited out of the bathroom stall before their pants are zipped up...talk about clusters of people who don't seem to mind at all being crammed into one city and space. We spent hours in traffic, went to the Great Wall, more hours in traffic, went to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and more traffic (traffic so scary it's best to just sleep - which was easy for this jet-lagging girl!).
So, we are at the starting step of the Great Wall of China (tour), heading up a narrow walkway of hundreds of uneven steps with hundreds of people. Every 20 minutes of stair-climbing we reach a turn or a point where we think we are almost there, but no…we had no idea that we had about an hour of steady upward steps. Eyes down, as each step changes from short to very steep, slanted right to slanted left, with many variables and with the heavy breathing of others behind us and before us as our climbing beat, we neared the top. The higher you go, you find less people surrounding you. As I approached the top, 48 hours from getting our baby – our ultimate destination…I heard “Final Countdown” (song) in my head…I’ve been replaying over and over for days, and thought, this is it! What a parallel to our adoption process…steady, seemingly never-ending, challenging climbing with unexpected terrain. And then, there we were with the blue sky and dusty mountains for miles as our backdrop. We made it! And soon we will make it to our ultimate destination…Elita! So soon I am waking in the night picturing her in her crib at the end of my bed and can imagine kissing her soft baby skin! (I've been up since 3 AM, thinking about her, despite exhaustion that I cannot put into words!
We are having technical difficulties with posting photos (slow internet), so hopefully soon I can go back and add photos to the text, but for now, at least you know what is going on...we are going to meet Elita at 8:30 tomorrow morning...13 hours from now, which is 8:30 Sunday night for you!
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2 comments:
I am so excited !!!
your description of everything is so vivid that we absolutely feel we are right there with you!!
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