getting here.

Mariam and I have now been in Jeddah for almost seven days. We are still working towards getting her to sleep at night. Having a spunky one year old on a nine hour time difference is more exhausting than having a newborn at home. But it still follows the same rules, she passes out, I pass out. So it is 3:32 AM here, and I am trying to keep her quiet and busy so Mike can go deal with a classroom of first graders in three hours. Mare and I will (not try to) sleep this afternoon.

The first day here we slept. We had just gotten off of 24 hours of travel. My dad drove us to the airport at 5 AM last Tuesday. Mariam and I got on a flight to JFK, and she slept the whole plane ride. Next we picked up our bags and headed into terminal 1 for a ten hour lay over. The check in counter for Saudi Airlines was not even set up yet. I guess this was the shortest layover we could have gotten though, unless we wanted to do more than one transfer. Mariam and I sat on benches, played on the floor, ate sandwiches, made very daring trips to the bathroom with all of our luggage. It went as well as it could.

I could check my bags and go through security four hours before the plane started boarding. Six hours went past and we checked in and headed through security. If you think airport security is all scary and terrible now you should stop watching TV and quit reading dumb internet articles. I had no body scan or pat down in my two times though. In fact I did not even see one body scan or pat down. Just your typical shoes off, stuff in the bin, go through the metal detector. Anyway. If you fly anytime soon, all that junk you hear about will most likely not happen to you at all. I think Scott Bibus had a body scan last time he flew, but wouldn't you be curious too?

We got to our gate and Mariam made quick friends with a girl from Germany named Annabelle and a Russian baby about her age named Ayesha. Mariam and Ayesha toddled around the gate and played together till the flight to Moscow left. We had some tuna and milk for dinner and Mariam fell asleep just as we started boarding our giant airplane to Saudi Arabia.

The plane was very nice. Each seat had it's own TV and they gave Mariam a little bassinet to sleep in. They also gave her a soft backpack that folded out into a blanket. It had a stuffed version of the airplane with big eyes instead of windshields, diapers, a nuk, a bottle, baby wipes, baby lotion, baby cream, baby soap, baby powder, two baby foods, baby apple juice, and a baby teething biscuit in it. They gave me two pillows, two blankets, socks, a sleep mask, a toothbrush and toothpaste, headphones, a refreshing towelette, two really good airplane meals, a snack, and at the very end a little green candy. I watched "Where the Wild Things Are" and "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" in between meals and compulsively checked the feature that told me the time left in transit and the exact place we were over. Mariam slept and I waited forever for the sun to start peeking though the windows. It finally came through, and I realized we still had hours to go. I am not good at sleeping on airplanes, even with pillows and fancy things.

We flew over Spain and Italy and Greece. We flew over The Nile. I got up and put my Abaya on in the bathroom and we finally got to Jeddah. Mariam and I got off the plane and on to a little bus that took us to the building. It was hot and the sun was setting already. The airport was pretty typical, besides the fact that all the women had on black Abayas and the men had on giant white shirtdress things. I filled out a little card for myself and Mare and we headed through customs and out sliding doors to a large crowd of people. Mike hopped the railing holding them back and hugged us. Mariam started to cry, I started to cry, a man brought our bags out, and we got into our car.

Mariam is looking sleepy now. I am going to take advantage of this calm and post more later. Goodnight!

::tontie::