If you've been journeying with our family for any time now, you know we do the airplane thing rather frequently. And everytime in my small faith, I get anxious and freaked out about traveling with all of our children. And I often refer to our traveling as an episode of the "Beverly Hillbillies." Well, everytime we are sent what we call our "traveling angels, " just to prove to me that my worry is in vain. This time our angels came in the form of the Iraqi National Soccer Team.
Our trip to Thailand was defined by food poisoning. Thank Goodness, on the way home, Kesed was the only one who threw up and it was on me, so no big deal. We flew all the way home with the entire Iraqi soccer team. Although we couldn't communicate, they were wonderful with our kids. They played and held and were very attentive with our kids. Brad and I both felt an overwhelming desire to apologize for what has happened to their country. All we could do was smile and offer warm pleasantries. Curse the Tower of Babel and therefore our lack of ability to communicate.
We then hopped in the car that we had hired to take us back home. It was actually a van and a car this time. We all piled in and were off in just a few minutes of arriving at the airport. We stopped after about 30 minutes of driving to take off the license plates. This is fairly normal (albeit illegal, I'm sure) so this doesn't surprise us. So we get to the first of three toll booths. The van paid to go through and we gunned it past the toll guard. That was followed by peacock-esque squealing and yelling as we sped away and wove through traffic. But no license plate means no being caught. Our driver is FLYING down the road and we are seatbeltless. He shaved about an hour off the time it usually takes to get us home.
Tollbooth #2: Pull up to tollbooth and looked for closed booths to go through. None were open so we did a u-turn on the highway and headed down some side road to avoid aforementioned toll. On the way, almost being careened into by a truck carrying shredded paper.
Tollbooth #3: Both van and car find a large bus to get behind and we coat tail it through, therefore, avoiding the fee of all 3 tolls.
There was also a random stop on the side of the road to exchange something and then continue on. Tired and dirty, we walk into our apt. to find our electricity has been turned off. Candles it is for two days. But we're back to normal now and started back at school today.
We got a laugh out of all of this as we both exclaimed "we're home." The moralessness of this place was a reminder of why we are here.
