Gina and Bailey go Peruvian! (Day #1: December 26-27, 2016)

Welcome to my latest scrapbook of  verbal tirades and photos to support them! To catch up those of you who do not listen to my rants of parenthood on the regular, Bailey decided to finish out highschool in Peru, learn Spanish without a workbook, and enjoy the REALLY NICE lifestyle (more on that later) with his Godparents, Jane Divinski and John Alexander, in Lima Peru.

I was SUPER excited to be going there with him and thought that this was LITERAlLY a fraction of the McDonells we usually travel with so this should be a piece of cake right? Well, as it turned out, it was NOT a piece of cake but a cluster of .... not cake. We arrived at SFO about 7:00am which meant that Bailey was essentially comatose and not mentally present so Toby and I did the check-in and headed immediately to the Starbucks for some "morning medication"while Bailey found a nice comfy table to curl up and nap atop of. The first indication of potential trouble came when the flight was delayed an hour. "No worries", I said. We had a four hour layover in Los Angeles anyway. Hmmm... as it turned out, no so much....

The next occurence of concern was when Bailey and I went through security and they flagged what we call the "$10,000 suitcase". It contained LOTS of cameras, computer stuff, plugs and apparently caused some concern for the TSA people because they unpacked it... all. Fortunately our flight was delayed further and Bailey could have had time to give a detailed tour of each item if they so desired.

After making our way to our seats on the plane we enjoyed another hour of quiet (and stuffy) contemplation on the runway because SHOCKINGLY there were many flights into L.A. the day after Christmas and things were being delayed. (Someone should have put a teacher OR a mother in charge of the flight schedules and this would NEVER have happened!) I was still feeling "totally okay"with the delay because we would still have two hours to get from one terminal to the other, grab some food for the boy and leisurely board our plane. NOT MEANT TO BE! Our flight into LAX landed FIVE minutes after our flight to Lima was boarding and we had to take a bus and walk across three continents (only a slight exaggeration I asure you!) to get to our gate. Bailey has a broken arm so I am pulling two bags and wearing a big backpack... it is VERY IMPORTANT to set up the visual here so pause before reading on.... anyway, there was a group of about ten of us that were LITERALLY running through the terminals yelling, "Wait! We are coming!" Again, I need you to picture ME RUNNING... with luggage. The first two words sound like some sort of oxymoron but add the luggage to the image and it was just NOT a good look for me.

We were literally the last people on the bus that took us across the other four continents of airstrips so we could board our plane to Peru. I was SUPER happy I had worn a seater and a scarf as that was making me feel like a wrestler before a weigh in. The flight to Lima itself was uneventful as my companion was unresponsive and asleep for 95% of the trip.

We arrived in Lima about 1:00am and waited for our luggage with everyone else.... and waited... and waited until we were the only ones there except for the exact same ten people who raced through the airport with us. Until that moment it never occured to me that if we had made it with seconds to spare that our luggage would not be nearly so urgent to roll toward the plane.Fast forward (that is a joke BTW) to 3:00 am and I headed to bed with my borrowed pajamas and prayers to the LATAM airline gods that I would be gifted with fresh undies the next day.