We had very little time to ourselves on the trip. When we did have and hour or so, we slept. We were in bed early every single night. If you know us, you know we rarely go to bed early. This trip and these past few days, we have been in bed around 9pm, 8 pm then 7pm!!! We are soooo tired! The jet lag wasn't nearly as bad arriving in country as it was coming home. I'm glad about that. I couldn't imagine functioning in a foreign country feeling as I do these past few days. It is rough!
I tried to have descriptive facebook posts while we were in country so that I could reference them for this post. I will try elaborating a bit more than the posts but if you have me on facebook, you will recognize most of what I am going to write. (That is your warning ha ha).
We had such an amazing experience with British Airways. They were kind and friendly and super helpful. At the security, the guy couldn't believe this was my first time flying so he put me in the lineup for families (the nice line up ha ha). That was such a relief. They walked me through everything and Corey laughed the whole time. He kept saying, "I've never been treated this well". Ha ha, maybe he needs to take me on more trips ;)
When we boarded the plane, Corey was explaining something to me and the steward caught on I never flew before either. He would come by and make sure I was ok and when we landed he told the captain. The captain proceeded to invite me to the cockpit to see how it all works (I even got to sit in his chair HA HA!!!!). I was so embarrassed but it was pretty cool. Again, Corey was just tickled at all the niceness.
We arrived in London after our 9 hour flight. We were exhausted! We really wanted to see the Windsor Castle and take pictures for our girls but it just didn't happen unfortunately. We ended up taking a double decker bus to the mall instead. That was a neat experience. The girls got a kick out that. We made sure to sit on the top just for them :)
The place we stayed in London was made for layovers. Our agent told us she sends many missionaries there in between flights as it is a very basic place with no frills made for layovers. We took her word on it that it was going to be ok. We were so tired the first night that we just went to sleep. On the way back we went to the same "hotel". We walked into the room and it was DISGUSTING! There was hair everywhere and blood on the sheets...BARF!!!!!! Needless to say, we wandered around London looking for a new accommodation that was close by. Thankfully, after a couple of tries, we found a place. We lost out on money because we had to pay both places but I don't regret the move one bit! At least we didn't feel like we were going to catch a disease in our sleep. I think that was the worst experience of our trip (other than saying goodbye to our daughter).
The plane to BG was smaller. There were no movies on this three hour flight and we were crammed in with another person. Thankfully, the plane wasn't full and after lift-off our seatmate found a free spot in the back giving us all the much needed space and legroom.
When we arrived in BG, we thought we would see our facilitator among the people holding signs with names on them. We panicked a bit when our name wasn't on any of the signs! Lucky for us, it didn't last long as our facilitator and his two sons (both lawyers that work with him, one being our translator) sought us out. We came with four suitcases (two suitcases were chalk full of donations that we left with the orphanage) and were quite excited to walk up to a minivan (most cars are VERY small).
They drove us to the capital where we would spend our first night (and last night before flying off). When we got settled in our room (and they showed us how to work the lights, they brought us to a restaurant that served traditional Bulgarian food.
The restaurant was a culture shock. Thankfully, it had an English menu. I already knew that I wanted to order the Shopska salad (the "famous" salad of Bulgaria) but knew I was really hungry so I added a soup to the order. Soup and salad...sounded light and non-piggish right?!?! NOPE! It caused quite the discussion at the table. "You want soup AND salad? Two? Both?" "She wants both, yes" "Both...you want soup? or salad?" "One soup AND One salad" "Yes, that IS what she wants". OH MY STARS!!! This was the first meal here and I already felt awkward! Corey thought it was quite comical! I ate all the food and it was delicious!!! I still do not understand the problem!
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