We’re Sorry for the Misconvenience!

March 14, 2011

After de-planing, we headed to the line to pay our $20.00 for a Visa to temporarily enter the country.  This took about 45 minutes or so and wasn’t a big deal, other than we were dog tired and ready for a place to sleep.  It was somewhat comical as the employees were doing everything by hand:  filling out paperwork, doing a receipt with carbon copies, filling out some other card.  Even the passport stamp was a handwritten sticker that they affixed to a page in our passports!  VERY authentic!  After customs and then baggage claim – all our bags were there…yeah - we passed by the currency exchange knowing that airport rates aren’t too favorable and that we’d have plenty of time the next day to convert our money to Birr.  So we departed from the secure area looking for the driver provided by the hotel, and….no driver!  We walked all around and saw lots of drivers holding names, but no driver!  We walked around some more and were starting to look like some really good targets by the strange groups of people just hanging around there at the airport, and…no driver!  We would have just taken a cab, except that we had no Birr and they only take cash!  Thankfully, Eric had enough juice on his cell phone for us to eek out 3 Skype calls to the hotel before they could finally understand us and re-send the driver.  Apparently he had been there two hours previously and felt that he didn’t need to wait anymore!  Certainly we were unsettled and miffed, but he was so cute when he came rushing up to us (we had now been waiting about an hour and 20 minutes for him at this point) out of breath and said, “we’re so sorry for the misconvenience!”  He was quite sincere and apologized the whole way home.  And it was lovely weather when we walked outside and the airport did look nice all lit up at night!

  

**I was humored when we got in the taxi/van and he had to start it Karate Kid style.  Remember that, when Ralph Macchio had to start his mom’s station wagon down a hill in neutral and then turn the ignition and pop it into gear to get the car started on his first date with Elizabeth Shue?  Yeah, I’m a child of the 70s…what can I say?