Off to Latvia

In June, it was time to head back to Latvia for the yet another New Horizon's For Children "Orphan Airlift" as part of my involvement with Airline Ambassadors.  This year, NHFC was going to bring 300 Latvian and Ukrainian children to the states for summer hosting sessions with American families.  I signed up to head back to Latvia.  

I had an uneventful flight over to Riga, with a short layover in Helsinki.  There would be several Airline Ambassador escorts making their way over to Riga and so it was going to be fun to meet up and see some of the city with them.  Maria, a JFK based flight attendant, was the first to arrive, and she and I hung out the evening of my arrival.  We went to dinner and walked around old town, taking in the scene and listening to some local Latvian Jazz.

We even managed to encounter a local who appeared to be high on the Latvian equivalent of peyote who engaged Maria in some local dancing.  She was also missing most of her teeth and had the characteristic bad red dye job that seems to be a favorite of women who grew up under a communist regime.  SHE LOVED MARIA!

After that experience, I retired for the evening and met up with the rest of our group the next morning, as they were all arriving late that first night.  It was hot and sunny, but we got out and about exploring Riga and the Old Town.

Here is the Dome Cathedral Square, which when I was here in December, was the site of the Christmas Market and was covered in snow.

We ate at a local restaurant called the Blue Cow.  The food was pretty good and we enjoyed each other's company as the sun set.

We all left at different times the next day, and I was departing with one of the last groups.  Of course, leaving wasn't without hiccups, as the travel agency had spelled some of the kids' names wrong so I had to run back and forth to the ticket office to pay for the name change fee for each child.  Thanks to some wonderful Finnair employees we all made it thru security and to our plane.

The plan was for our group of 24 to fly to Helsinki and from there half would go on to JFK with another AAI rep and the Latvian chaperone.  I would take my group to Chicago and then five of the kids all the way to Dallas.

This is Gundars, one of the kids who would be coming all the way with me to DFW.

After a quick puddle jumping flight to Helsinki, we were met by David, my fellow escort, who took his group on to JFK.  Our flight to Chicago was full and I had to sit in Business Class (queue the sad music) but the kids were very well behaved and the cabin crew fell in love with them and even bought all the Toberlone bars out of the Duty Free cart to be shared with all the kids.

We had a very tight connection in Chicago, but thankfully, our local AAI rep, Soad, was there to coordinate everything.  She flew for American Eagle and is presently in training and will be joining us here at AA in September (Welcome SOAD).  She had passenger service agents meet our flight and get us expedited thru immigration.  The CBP officer who accused me of being a human trafficker last December, remembered me, and this time, welcomed us with open arms.  We made it thru customs at lightning speed and Soad had pizzas and waters ready for us and my group of five and I hauled butt to the domestic terminal.  The remaining kids were on later connections or staying in Chicago.

We were doing great on time and then weather struck and the airport shut down, but in the end we made it Dallas about three hours late.  It's always a good feeling to see the families waiting as we meet them in baggage claim!