Back Home In The Napa Whine Country

Here we are at home again. We made it. With a little money to spare – actually we just spent that money getting some clothing for Rachel. But we are home anyway.

See, a bunch of friends gave Rachel clothes, t-shirts, dresses, shoes, that kind of stuff – which was really appreciated by the way -- but everything wound up being too big. So we are just putting the clothes towards the back of her closet and feeding her lots of protein.

The trip back was almost an experience of its own. First off, our overpriced hotel, The Imperial, kind of redeemed itself. Apparently the crowd at the front desk thought Rachel was so cute they all went in on a Barbie doll for her. Rachel loves the doll, which is blond and lights up. I doubt the front desk people asked for input from the rotten old concierge. Still, the concierge was all smiles as we left, which made me wonder if he was really charmed by Rachel or just relieved to see us leave.

Then to the Delhi Gandhi Airport, which, considering it is named for Mahatma Gandhi, has a pretty decent food court. (Sorry, bad joke -- couldn’t resist. Joking about hunger-striking is really in bad taste, excuse the pun.)

When we all got to the Indian immigration desk we practically got a standing ovation from several immigration officers who realized we are adopting Rachel and bringing her to live with us in the US. One of the immigration officers said "God will bless you for adopting her." I said "He already has."

Another passenger making his way through said he was a journalist and when he heard that we are going to the US with our adopted child he said he wanted to do a story on us. He was a very friendly Indian guy with a turbine (I think that means he is a Sinkh). We all took photos of each other, arm in arm, with many smiles all around. Cynical traveler that I am, I checked to make sure I still had my wallet.

It was still there. The reporter told us he would be reporting on us on the following websites:

http://www.mediapunjab.com/
http://www.europepunjab.com/
http://www.aj-de-awaz.com/

and I can't read his writing on the fourth website. If anyone finds that we really are written about on any of these websites please let me know. I hope the reporter doesn't describe the adoptive parents as "disheveled" but that is kind of how we felt.

The flight home was OK, except everywhere that Singapore Airlines stopped, we had to get off the plane and go through security again. That got old. But Rachel managed to sleep most of the way, so she has gotten over the time change faster than Martina and me.

The next morning we slept right through our alarm clock and missed church. But Martina, Rachel and I went to visit several friends, including Chelene, Marlowe, Geneva, Holly, Walt, and Sharon. To my astonishment I heard that someone had disseminated this blog address throughout the church. I rushed home to re-read the blog and make sure none of my jokes were off-color. Well, not too off-color.

A number of people asked me about the restaurant that never gave us any silverware. On our last full day in Delhi, during our Delhi tour we stopped at the Sheraton Hotel, looking for a restaurant that serves foreign food, but mostly to Americans so it is not too intestinally-exhilarating, if you know what I mean.

We went to a place that served some familiar items, but everything was “kabob” this or "kabob" that. When our food was brought to us we noticed we had no silverware. “No problem,” Martina and I told each other. “We’re world travelers, we can do it. We’ll eat with our hands. Heck, we’ll even drink with our hands if that is how they do it here.”

I’m probably building this one up too much, but we survived the meal eating with our hands. Towards the end of the meal I told Martina that it would be a good joke if they waited until we finished and came to us and said “so sorry. We forgot your silverware. Here it is.”

Well, at least we had cups to drink from, not a pitcher to pour water into our hands to drink.

So that is our experience with the hand-eating restaurant and the trip in general. Not too horrifying, pretty expensive most of the time, and while two of us went there, three of us returned. It is good to be back – no, it is GREAT to be back! Martina and I feel like experts on Indian adoptions, so feel free to ask if you get the urge.

--Tom

Here is one of the first photos of Rachel after she got off the plane in San Francisco. Mary, Rachel's sister, and Joe, Rachel's brother-in-law, picked us up and brought us to Nathan's place where 14 family members welcomed Rachel. I couldn't resist asking Andrew, our 7-year old grandson if he could babysit his aunt someday.

Here is Rachel after a long day's travel in her new bed. That is her Dora The Explorer doll next to her.

Although we never found anything missing, we are pretty sure our house got broken into while we were gone. The burglar covered his or her tracks by attaching an "It's a Girl" balloon on our mailbox, cleaning the kitchen, sweeping off our back deck and hanging up this "Welcome home" sign on our fireplace. We weren't fooled and we called the cops immediately.

Just kidding Holly! Thanks for the homecoming!