The chaos of 3 flights and it's not over yet...

Over 48 hours, our feet walked in 4 different time zones, going forward a total of 10 hours and then back 1 hour, to finally land in Uganda. In the grand scheme of things, our trip was uneventful. In the day to day life of a family, it had plenty of stressful moments, uncertain moments, and some fun spots. Here is a quick recap of the highlights and some photos.

We started the journey home on Friday with 2 pieces of luggage per person and a carry on.

It was pretty early in the morning when we heard that our first flight would be delayed because the plane had left London late. We were bumped back 1.5 hours. This wasn’t too concerning at the time because I thought we had a nearly 4 hour lay-over in London, so even being late, we’d still have more than 2 hours. However, when we actually looked at the flight info later in the day, we realized that we only had a 2 hour lay-over originally. Now, we’d have about 30 minutes to get off the first flight, go through the international security check, find our gate, and board the next flight.

Fortunately, the folks in the airline industry are used to this sort of thing and they have processes in place. As soon as we walked off the plane, a British Airways employee was standing with a sign looking for us. She told us to follow her and the race began. We were taken through a different route where I’m guessing either the employees or only specific people are taken through (I don’t know, maybe wealthy people or really frequent flyers or important folks who don’t have to stand in the line like everyone else, I didn’t have time to pay enough attention to notice what this smaller entrance was for). Once through that check, we just rushed to our gate and were taken on the plane.
This flight took us from London to Abu Dhabi (the capital of the United Arab Emirates). We’d have to spend the night in a hotel there because of the long lay-over. The airport was very busy and it was our first time here, so we were a bit unsure of ourselves. As we finally made it out into the main exit area, a man approached us asking if we needed a taxi. We did, but first we’d have to find an ATM to get local currency. This man was a bit odd and kept trying to get us to exit the building with him, assuring us that there was an ATM outside. Since it was so busy, we were looking around but couldn’t really see any ATM signs or anything. Floyd told the kids and I to stay where we were and followed the man a bit away from us to get more information. At this time, another American man came up to me and asked me what that man wanted. Fortunately, this guy had been here before, so he told me what I needed to know. There were ATMs at the other end of the large room and there was a line for the licensed taxis.

It's so hard to see, but this is the Persian Gulf at night, and you
look hard to see the round building in the skyline. 

At this point, Floyd came back, we went to the ATM and got in the long line for taxis. Fortunately, it went very fast and we were at our hotel before just 10pm. The hotel was actually on Yas Island and it was beautiful. The back side of the hotel looked over the Persian Gulf with only a golf course separating it from the shore. They have a few different restaurants inside, so were able to get some food before crashing. It was nice to have a shower and comfortable bed.

The hotel pool at night, viewed from the balcony in our room.

The chef at the hotel restaurant offered us all free dessert, I'm guessing because we were the very last guests at closing (11:30pm).  It was great!

As sun rose, I could get a better shot. Look past the cabanas and you'll see a water line. That's the Persian Gulf!

This airport has come beautiful designs. This is a glimpse one of the terminals.

When we checked in, we asked about getting a taxi back to the airport in the morning and were assured that taxis are always around. So, we came down from our room about 5-10 minutes before our intended departure time. At this point, they told us that we would have to take 2 taxis or they’d have to call the taxi company to see if a large taxi was available. The regular ones only hold 4 people. We learned that the delay for a large taxi would be too long, so we got into 2 taxis. Floyd & Tyler in one, Raegan, Troy & me in another one.
At one point we approached a red light. Floyd’s taxi got in the turn lane and mine pulled up next to it in the lane to continue straight. For Floyd this caused a good amount of suspicion. We are in the Middle East, it’s a new place for us, and being in two different cars was bad enough. Now, my taxi driver is giving some hand signals to Floyd’s driver and we’re about to go two different directions. Floyd had no idea what the hand signals were. Fortunately for me, I knew that our driver was just saying that going straight would be a faster route but the other driver insisted on his own route. I arrived at the airport about 2 minutes ahead of Floyd, but he had all the local money. Fortunately, my driver was very patient and understanding, so he just waited for Floyd to arrive without complaining.

The UAE's dirham, which is very pretty, and the McDonald's menu.

At this point, we also changed airlines. This final flight would be on Eithad Airways. It was very different to see everything in Arabic. Also, every announcement is made in Arabic first and then translated to English. We got to the airport with some time to spare, so having not eaten yet, we looked for a place to get food. I don’t know if you’d call lit luck, but we did find a McDonald’s in our terminal. Again, it was very cool to see everything in Arabic. Their menu had many of the same items, but also a few different ones. They actually had something called a Chicken Mac, which is like a Big Mac, but it has 2 chicken patties instead of hamburger patties. All of the guys ordered that and thought it was quite delicious. They pondered why we don’t have that in the US. I think the French fries were actually better than in the states.

Our McDonald's containers printed in Arabic.

After eating we headed to our gate and sat down. As other folks began to arrive and we watched the clock, Floyd felt like something was wrong. After several minutes of this feeling, he went to the man at the gate to ask about our flight. I had asked the man when we first arrive if we were in the right place, but in hind sight, he clearly didn’t understand me. Our gate had been changed. We had to go back upstairs to another gate, which was actually the one right next to the McDonald’s we had eaten at earlier. We boarded the plane and got ready for takeoff.
Once we arrived in Entebbe, Uganda, the customs line was long and they did charge us the entry Visa fee (we had been told that because of our process that we’ve been going through, the agent would recognize our current stamp and we wouldn’t be charged, but we had brought the money just in case). We went out to get our luggage and were very disappointed. Only a portion of our luggage had arrived. We checked 10 pieces (2 each) and only 4 ever arrived. Also, we had agreed to check our carry-ons because the flight was full and it saves space. Floyd’s carry-on did not arrive.
We filled out all the paper work for missing luggage. They told us that everything should arrive on Monday, but if not then, it could be Wednesday. Of course, we all figure that not everything got transferred when our first flight was so late arriving to London. Hopefully, it will all show up.

Davis and Roxy. She outgrew her baby face and has
a little girl face now. :)

Our friend Davis and his wife and daughter were at the airport to pick us up. They brought flowers. It was great to see them and so sweet of them to greet us! Davis had also already hired a driver with a small truck to transport all of our luggage. Too bad it hadn’t arrived. They loaded what we had and we headed out. It is rainy season and we’ve already seen hours of rain. It was so late by the time we got to our vehicle and it was raining quite hard, so we stayed the night at Bulondo’s (the hotel where we stay when we have to be in the city over night). They already had a room reserved for us just in case. We actually had left our car at the hotel because they have a gated entry and had told us it was no problem to leave the car there while we were gone. To leave it at the airport would have cost a lot of money.
We are so glad to be back in Uganda and can’t wait to get home on Monday!