Journey to Alivia Begins

It has been almost a year to the day I last posted on this blog. This post is so much more advanced in the timeline phase, obviously, because we will be meeting Alivia today and enjoying our "Gotcha Day." Sometimes our journey seems to have taken forever and other times it has sped by while I was scrambling to catch up! It's 4 a.m. here in Taipei - 4 p.m. your time yesterday. A wonderful time for reflection on the last few days.

We received our notice that we were going to travel this past Tuesday or Wednesday (it blurs!!). Using the recommended travel agent, we (Todd, Alia, Mom & I) were on a flight out Saturday night. So here goes:

Orlando Airport - No problem. Loved having the updated car to get us there.

LAX - Hiked a million miles to EVA airline terminal (from United terminal 6 or 7 to terminal 4). Got lost a couple of times. Ate at McDonald's along the way. Every time we'd stop and ask for directions inside the building, they would tell us to outside down the sidewalk. It was a nice 70 degrees out in LA, great for being outside but when you're lugging heavy carry ons, walking is the last thing you want to do. We get to the EVA terminal 123 A & B and have about 3 hours to wait. Stretch our legs. Have 2 airport people drive up in the electric carts and take a massive amount of people with them, saying 15! Stretch our legs. Have the people return and take more passengers with them - "last of 15!" Not too many people there and thinking - wow, quiet flight. Go up to the terminal line closer to the time (it all snakes around and you can't see the podium), yup - where we need to be, get in the front of this line here - you'll be first in Economy class. More airport people - taking "15s" with them. Hmmmmmm......better question this. Find out, we are in the wrong place. They switched the terminal for departure after our arrival and didn't make a mass announcement. So we hustle to the correct terminal and there are 100s of people waiting. From there, we load onto buses like sardines (no kidding) and head to a remote terminal and then load our doubledecker EVA Airways plane. Finally!!