The whole sordid tale

Well, I thought I would take a minute and write about our whole experience at the consulate, now that things have settled down a bit. S-lady and I spent the whole day Wednesday packing stuff up. S and Bman went into town for one last adventure. We were supposed to meet Lee in the lobby at 2:45 with nothing on us except our passports. They have tight security and it was going to be very crowded and she wanted us to breeze through the lines. So, the boys got home just under the radar and we hurried and scurried to get them showered and all of the last minute stuff shoved into the bags. We had to be ready to go to the airport because there would be little time after returning from the Consulate. We made it to the lobby on time and headed out to the bus. This time there were many many agencies taking their clients to the Consulate. Usually when we go out, it is just the three families in our travel group. This time we shared a large chartered bus with many other agencies. The drive to the Consulate took forever. We finally got there. It was in a much more modern part of Guangzhou and it was very beautiful there. We rode many escalators up to the fourth floor. We went through security and then waited in line to talk to someone at the counter. They verified that the baby we were holding was indeed the one we were supposed to get. Then we waited some more. We had to wait for all of the families (from numerous buses) to get through the lines. Finally a Consulate official spoke to the group at large and explained the process of entering the US with our babies. Then she read an oath which we all repeated as an entire group. Then everyone whooped and hollered--it was really officially over! It was a great feeling! We waited as our facilitators received all of the paperwork from the Consulate for each of their families. Lee handed us our packets with all of the info and our visas. I noticed that the visa she gave me was not for Lucie. It turns out that it was indeed Lucie's passport, but not Lucie's visa. Lee had mixed up the paperwork somehow. Lucie's visa was in another baby's passport and vice versa. Lee got a very panicked look on her face and grabbed the paperwork and ran off. She returned a little later with the same panicked look. I think she realized the hugeness of her error. She said they were working on it.

By this time, it was about 4:30 and we were the only ones left in the room. We decided that the moms and kids would return to the hotel and the dads would wait for the visas. So we went back downstairs to get on the bus. Well, no bus. No people. Nothing. The buses had all left without us. No one even noticed we weren't there. (This part really bothered me). The Consulate was now closed--there was no way we could get back in. So, we had to wait in the downstairs lobby. Remember that we had NOTHING with us. No water, no bottles, no money--nothing. We waited for a very long time. I think it was close to an hour. Finally the dads and Lee came down and told us that things were not looking good for getting our visas that night. We loaded into taxis and headed back to the hotel. Luckily S had tucked some yuan in his pocket so he could pay for the taxi (another sore spot with me--I think we paid over $50 in cab fares over the course of the night). We were all broken hearted that we wouldn't be going home that night. But, by the time we reached the hotel we were feeling better about things. It was determined that S would go with a guide to the China Southern office here in Guangzhou to work out the details of our delayed flight. I would stay with the kids at the hotel and get them fed and calmed down. So that is what we did. We checked back into our hotel for two more days. We went to our room put on our PJs (which involved rummaging through the suitcases and strewing stuff all over the room) put in a DVD (more rummaging) and ordered a pizza. I still had no yuan, so I went downstairs to exchange some currency.

When I returned the kids were calming down and thankfully I was able to feed Lucie some congee. After a while, the doorman called to tell me the pizza had arrived. I went downstairs to pay the delivery guy. When I returned I was greeted in the elevator by Bman. He was shouting that Lee had called. The visas had gone through and we were supposed to meet her at the airport as soon as possible. What?! At this point it was about 8pm and our flight was scheduled to leave at 9pm. The airport is a good 30-40 minutes away. Surely he heard her wrong. Who leaves that kind of a message with a kid? I didn't have Lee's cell phone number, because it was written on a room key that I think Scot had with him or we had turned it in or something. So I frantically called the other family in the hopes that they had it. His wife had it and was not in the room. UGGH! (By the way, the other family that was involved in the great visa mix-up wasn't flying out until Thursday morning. So they weren't quite as panicked as we were.) His wife got back to the room and they called me with the number. I called Lee and she said that the visas had been fixed. She had a friend driving them to the airport for her. She had called S and he was also on his way to the airport and she wanted me to get to the airport ASAP. Easier said than done. We threw everything back into the suitcases (and I mean threw!). We gave away our pizza (we hadn't eaten since breakfast, but there was no time). We called for the bell hop and ran as fast as we could downstairs. Thank goodness one of the men in our group came to my rescue and helped me think through everything and get all of our stuff and all 3 kids down to the lobby. I had to close out our account and pay for the room. They charged me for a full night, even though we had only been there about an hour. The bell hop took forever but finally made it down with the bags. We went out to get a taxi and there weren't any to be seen. (There has always been a long line of taxis waiting outside the whole two weeks we have been here--but not this night). Finally a cab came along but they couldn't fit all of the luggage into the trunk. We had to rearrange everything. The kids and many of the bags were squished into the back seat. Lucie and I were up front with the driver. And we were off. We pulled into the airport at about 8:50. I saw S standing by the curb. I paid the driver and we unloaded all of the stuff. I asked if S really thought we were going to make this flight. He said no, we are all going back to the hotel. You have got to be kidding me!! Apparently customs closes the gate about an hour before the flight leaves. And nobody knew this?? S-lady was so upset by the whole ordeal that her stomach was in knots and she was crying. None of us had eaten anything. My stress level was very high and it was all for nothing? Apparently so.

We loaded into a van this time and headed back to the hotel. Total time at the airport for the kids and I...about five minutes. I was livid. We checked back into the room we had already paid for and signed up for one more night to boot. Then we all went to bed. At least we had Lucie's visa in hand. Now we just had to find a way to get out of here! And there you have it.

These are our favorite ladies helping on the 12th floor. Sally is on the right.

Famous red couch photos!