You're on your way to Africa - hooray! Here are some (hopefully) helpful hints for the airport process.

Get to the airport a good two hours early. When you check-in, make sure your luggage gets tagged all the way through to your final destination. Every once in a while, someone mistakenly tags them for only part of the trip, either your last US destination or your first Africa stop. Going to retrieve them, re-tag them and getting back through security, well that's a big pain in the tookus. Baggage allowance is 2 bags, 50 pounds a piece. You can go to 70 pounds for a fee of about $50/bag. Remember to have them scan your frequent flier mileage card – you don't want to miss out on 14,000+ miles!

The airlines are getting stricter and stricter about carry-on luggage. You get one “bag” (check dimensions on-line if you have a question about how large) and one personal item. If you carry a laptop, you'll have your laptop bag (and adoption docs) as your personal item, then the roll-aboard as your one “official” piece. Pillows are freebies, but that's about it. (You can always stick a blanket or a book or two in the pillowcase if you carry a full-size one. I take one of the curved neck pillows.) In London they made me check my roller, then wanted me to also check my laptop backpack because I was wearing a fanny pack! No one else counts a fanny pack as a piece of luggage . . .It wouldn't have been an issue if I had just stayed in the airport, but we left to go exploring.

So – you're there, you've checked in and you've finally made it on the plane – hooray! You'll want to remember to get up and stretch your legs every once in a while, to keep your blood circulation going. I wear the anti-embolism socks (fancy words for anti-blood clot) that you can find at Wal-Mart for about $4/pair. Do ankles rolls, foot lifts and neck stretches as well. You may find your feet swelling – get moving and drink water to help that go down. The pressurization in the cabin leads to dehydration. Soda is even more dehydrating – be sure to drink plenty of water. They may give you small glasses or bottles of water – go through a bunch of those. That will make some difference in how you feel when you get to your destination. :)