Escape from Hanoi

During our last night in Hanoi there were heavy rainstorms leading to massive flooding. My pictures don't do it justice. The roads were rivers with stalled cars everywhere. At some places there were several feet of standing water. Cops were directing traffic, but it was just every vehicle for him/herself. At one point our driver took the large van up onto the sidewalk, plowing through motorbikes to short-cut around some stalled cars and buses. He turned off the AC and floored it though deep flood waters that started coming in through the doors! We were getting worried that the van would stall and we'd have to swim for it. We got to the airport late, but the flights were delayed several hours. There was a break in the storm and all the flights were able to take off. The connection in Hong Kong was tight, but thankfully that flight was also delayed by 30 minutes. Gianna was pretty good the whole flight. She mostly slept, played with plastic utensils, and cried whenever she had to put on her baby seat belt. We touched down at JFK right on schedule. For her immigration, we had to go into a separate room where there was one lonely guy named Jose waiting for the immigration officers to clear his paperwork. They looked at Gianna's paperwork, gave it a stamp and said in a melancholy tone "congratulations you're an American citizen". We got our bags and saw Martin and Khanh waiting to take us home. Gianna was scared of the car seat, but Khanh reassured her in Vietnamese that everything was OK. Then she slept the rest of the car ride home. She was also scared of the dog when we got home, but I think she will come around. This morning, we were all sleeping together and Bruno was licking her ear.

Well, the waiting is over and a new journey into parenthood has begun. Dan will be home for 2 weeks. If Gianna is ready, we will put her in daycare Dec 1 and I will go back to work. We hope to make many trips with her to NYC and Philly to see Ryan and Jada. It will be fun to watch them all grow up, see how far they have come from that little orphanage outside of Hanoi. I wonder what life has in store for them?