Finally Home!

Oh, airlines. We should have been writing this update when we arrived home on Wednesday evening, but we didn't make it home then. When we got to Amsterdam in the morning we looked at our flight status on the screen and it said "Tomorrow." We were in disbelief, but it only got better. We went up to the arrivals counter and they told us that our flight was delayed and that we wouldn't be leaving until Friday (today). Apparently the pilot had been sick and the flight from the day before was delayed too, so there were a lot of people trying to get home. They told us that there was no posibility of catching another flight or going to a different airport, which we found pretty hard to believe, but what could we do? So they put us up in a nice hotel with all meals included. The airport and hotel were too far from the city to walk, and there was nothing around them. The problem with that was that we spent all of our money in Romania, and we didn't have a PIN for our credit card so we couldn't use it. We tried to get a cash advance from a bank with the card and my passport, which they said usually works, but it didn't. We called the credit card company twice and they said it should work but it didn't, so we had no money at all.

Fun stuff. The airline also gave us a 5 minute phone card, which was just barely enough to call my dad and let him know since he was planning on picking us up from the airport. We weren't able to get our luggage, so we were stuck with only our carry ons which didn't have clean clothes or our toiletries. The airline gave us some temporary toiletry kits which got us through, so we made it. We also didn't know when our flight would be so we had to check back later.

The airport had a nice mall in it but one can only walk around the same place so many times before getting bored. So we decided to take a walk by the hotel because we could see across the field that there were some houses over there. So we walked through a field that had ponys, miniature horses, and large horses. Then we walked for about an hour and ended up in a small villiage on a canal. It was very nice and the houses were typical Dutch archetecture. So even though we didn't get to go into Amsterdam we at least got to see some real Dutch sights.

So we left the hotel this morning at 6:00 and the plane departed around 9:00. When we got to Detroit we made it through customs, and it was like everyone knew about our flight. One said "Oh, you were on THAT flight, how could they delay it for 2 days?". It was pretty funny. We had to rebook our next flight and they put us on the very next one to Grand Rapids, even at the expense of possibly bumping others because we had already waited so long. In the end I don't think anyone had to be bumped but it was nice knowing that they gave us priority.

So now we're home, it's kind of wierd after having been gone for more than 5 weeks. This is just the beginning of our journey, now we start processing our emotions and trying to figure out what our next steps are. We want to share our story with everyone we know so we will keep updating this blog with pictures and more details of our trip. We also want to get together with everyone that we know soon so we can talk all about it. We really love sharing our experience with people and this trip was so amazing that there is a ton to tell.