Wednesday, July 6

Today we have tickets to leave the country. We don't however, have the necessary paperwork to bring Grace with us. It's been nice knowing you, cutie, but you gotta stay, and we gotta go. That's just how it works.

Of course, we're able to make changes to our tickets, so we won't be leaving Grace behind. That's just foolishness.

We checked the DHL website and found the package hadn't changed status, and still appeared to be in Guam. We knew this could happen, but we also knew that the previous family's package said the same thing until we got the call that it was in the country. We decided to have some breakfast and give things time to pass, and then we'd visit DHL to see if they had different information. We hadn't heard from the embassy, and we didn't want to pester them or get frustrated with another “no information” kind of response.

After having our usuals in the restaurant, we dashed to DHL, which is just a few big buildings over from the hotel. We were told to ask for the right guy, and he was right there, and helped us right away. He took our tracking number and checked his system. He noted that the DHL status indicated it was on the plane, but that the Continental manifest didn't have it listed. He also noted that sometimes the manifest is missing things, but that it's also been the case that while it leaves the DHL facility, it indeed doesn't make it on the plane.

In short, our package may or may not be on the plane. That's the good news. The bad news is that even if it is on the plane, it won't make it to Majuro until about 8 or 9PM. That's about the time we're supposed to be getting on the plane to Hawaii. It's actually the same plane.

Since the package won't be arriving before the end of the embassy business hours, and since we've been told outright that the embassy won't handle these things off-hours (at least in non-emergency cases), and since there'd be no time to collect and process the package in time for us to board the plane....we won't be leaving tonight.

If the package isn't on the plane today, he said, it would have its next opportunity on the Friday plane. We were a little put back, having had the idea that the planes came from that direction every day, but apparently we were just wrong on that one. So, if our visa isn't on the plane today, we won't travel over the weekend either, as the embassy wouldn't receive the package until Monday.

At least, we lamented, the package is moving. Maybe just to the queue by the planes, if not on the plane, but moving nonetheless. We thanked the DHL guy for his information. If nothing else, we know we can't travel today. We suspected as much, but we now have confirmation. We decided to go to the Continental office and see what to do about arranging another flight; we certainly don't want to get caught in a bad situation by not doing anything, and finding that we've forfeited something by our inaction.

While we were at the building, I wanted to quick stop in and give a shout out to some of the guys we'd been hanging out with at Enamonet. They're kind of big shots on the island, and I wanted to share and make sure I got contact information, either just for holiday cards, or in case this off-shore thing could happen. If not fully engaged by anyone at my company or clients or whatever on my end, at least I could continue with the ideas and provide some input on how it can all work. I am, after all, a consultant.

The big guy, Kenneth, had just stepped out, but Bobby was in. We were invited back to his office, and he was hard at work on his PC. I gave him a little guff for looking like he was working hard. We shared that we might or might not be leaving over the weekend, and agreed that if we were here on Sunday, that we'd join them for at least one more party day. We thanked him, and Kenneth, of course, for including us, and giving us some truly vacation-like days during our stay. We exchange information, and I told him to get back to pretending to work, and we took our leave.

We headed directly to the Continental office. We had to at least learn what was up with our tickets. The agent was friendly and fast, and suggested that we grab seats on the next flight, as they have been filling the planes lately. They come in from Guam, and places before Guam, and people are continuing on to Hawaii; it's not just people leaving Majuro. It made a little more sense then that they'd have more people on them.

We discussed some options and made some plans and booked tickets for Friday's flight. If for some reason we couldn't fly on Friday, like the visa didn't arrive today or if the embassy didn't give it to us before Friday's flight, then we'd be able to move it. Because of the kind of ticket we got, we've got unlimited flexibility to rearrange the flights like this. Of course, we have to obey the laws of space-time, and can only arrange for flights in the future. Also, we can only arrange for flights on which there's room, so it's a better plan to grab and return than to wait and try.

The downside, if you want to call it that, is that the connecting flight to the mainland is full, and the next available isn't leaving until Monday. So we'll leave Majuro Friday night, around 9PM. We cross the date line, so after about a 6-or-7-hour flight, we'll land in Hawaii on Friday around 3AM. Take that, space-time! We'll then be forced to lounge in Hawaii until Monday night, when we leave for Houston. We'll arrive in Houston Tuesday morning, and leave Tuesday afternoon for Minneapolis, arriving just before rush hour is in full swing.

If we can't travel on Friday, we can travel on Saturday or Monday to Hawaii and still make the connecting flights. If the package isn't on the flight tonight, but it arrives on Friday's flight, Claire has pledged to pitch the right kind of fit to try to get the package so we can leave on Saturday, otherwise we'll have to settle for Monday. There's currently room on both.

The agent was able to take our accrued miles and upgrade us to business class for the journey to Hawaii, but there weren't enough of the right seats for the trip to Houston. She did put us on the stand-by wait list, so it should be the case that if there's room on that flight, we'll get those, too. There's no business class on the last leg of the return trip; the plane is too small.

Tickets taken care of as much as possible, we returned to our room. It had been raining gently all day, as the island seemed to weep for our visa, but that soon turned into a monsoon, as the island sobbed. Maybe not a real monsoon, and surely the island doesn't care about our plight, but it rained the most we'd seen since arriving, both in intensity and duration. The kind of rain that makes inside seem best.

With nothing else to do, we just let Grace have her afternoon nap and we lounged a bit, taking advantage of the return of the movie channel. Unfortunately, it seemed to be repeating itself, as Are We Done Yet and Barbershop were the movies playing first. As Tokyo Drift ended, we decided it was time for something to eat, or at least to get out of the room.

We had dinner downstairs, where we shared the latest visa news with bubu. She seemed both happy to have us around, and sad that things weren't going our way. It's getting harder, because we're kind of just getting into a groove with the family, but we're in a situation of strong desire and need to return. Hopefully this means that we'll have a strong desire to continue and improve contact. It might be easier, I jested, as we can probably write Marshallese a lot better than we can speak it. I don't think Google translate does English to Marshallese, but we've got dictionaries and grammar rules, so I can do it the slow and hard way, and look up each word and rearrange each sentence, if necessary. It might make the Marshallese portions of our correspondence small, but it should get easier with practice and time, right?

As time approached 6PM, we decided it was time to head to the airport to see the visiting family off. We'd previously offered to drive them, but between their birth-family and the hotel shuttles, they said they were fine for transportation. We didn't really have to see them off, having said possible good-byes after the birthday party, but we still wanted to get out, and we like 'em and wanted to say good-bye again.

They were a little surprised to see us. For a moment, they said, they thought maybe we were there to check-in, too, but they were glad to see us anyway. It worked out that we watched their stuff while they chased their boy around the open-air airport, and made their farewells with their birth-family. They came by and gave us appreciation for that and we all said we were glad to meet and that we'd keep in touch. They live in Chicago, which is only an hour-long flight or a day-long drive from Minneapolis, and near where there are frequent reunions for Marshallese adoptees and expatriates to meet. We pledged to make the trip and keep in touch and so on, and let them have the last of their time with just their birth-family, and we made our way back to the car.

We got back to the hotel still a little early. Grace ate and went to bed. She's been sleeping through the night. Well, more correctly, she's only been getting up once, around 5AM, give or take a little, after going down between 8PM and 10PM, depending on what we're doing and how long we keep her awake.

I ran to the restaurant and grabbed some ice cream and we settled to watch a little bit of The Big Bang Theory before turning in.