We made it!

It's been a looong trip, complete with a 6-hour layover in Chicago and a 14-hour flight to Beijing, but we're here, and our luggage made it too.  Right now we're in the hotel room getting ready to collapse into our bed (8 pm China time).   The flight was tolerable, all things considered.  The food was actually fairly good (3 meals), and the stewardesses were top notch.  We could even track our plane's progress on the globe via satellite mapping.  Turns out our flight path went straight north from Chicago, directly over the North Pole, down into Siberia, Mongolia, and finally Beijing.  We each managed to catch a couple hours of sleep, which was a big help.    It wasn't all pleasant, though.  For one thing, I'm now officially sick of Audrey Hepburn and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (inflight movie, over and over and over again).  And someone within my olfactory range was having gastrointestinal issues, if you catch my drift.  Speaking of air quality, a heavyset French woman near me was definitely having a "not so fresh feeling" problem.  Blech.  The landing was REALLY rough, the worst I'd ever experienced.  The women in front and to the right of me tossed their cookies into air bags, and Christy and I were mighty green.   Well before landing our plane was enveloped in smog, and it's hanging like a shroud over the whole city.  Even worse than L.A.  On our way to the hotel I saw motorcyclists wearing gas masks to breathe.  Pretty tough.   Once we disembarked, we caught up with a bunch of families going through the same adoption agency.  Had a chance to mosey around Beijing's airport, which is absolutely cavernous.  It was built for the Olympics, and clearly does not have the baseline traffic volume to justify such a large airport.  Within 5 minutes after clearing customs I ran across a Starbucks and a McDonald's, the first two restaurants I saw in China.  Unbelievable.   They also had a couple bookstores with some familiar subjects, though with slightly different text