We’ve been back in KL about a week now and have been plagued by connectivity issues so by the time I get this posted it’s going to seem way out of date, but my computer died again right after my last post and we decided just to take it back to the states and figure out what to do with it there. In the end it made more sense simply to replace it so one of my Christmas presents was a beautiful new laptop! Being the techno-idiot that I am, it is taking me a long time to learn how to maneuver my way around: it has Windows 7. So between that and just the general distractions of being home for the holidays I am now really, really far behind on my blogs! So here I go, trying to catch up…
When we left here in December I was so excited to be heading home, to see Barney, to sleep in my own bed, to see my friends and swim with the team that I wasn’t really even daunted by the prospect of the trip.
6 hours to Seoul were uneventful enough. It’s a beautiful new airport, complete with Subway so we started our assimilation back into American culture with Chicken Bacon Ranch sandwiches and root beer! 14 hours to DC were about what one might expect from a flight of that length, (i.e. miserable) and I will continue to be mystified by how my son seems to get more energetic, the less sleep he has had. How I wish we could trade that quality. One thing I was not prepared for was how completely dehydrated we all got on the flight. My fingertips were cracked and bleeding by the time we made it home and poor Conrad cried about how his lips hurt every time he took a drink of something. Needless to say I will not get on a plane again without an arsenal of hand cream and lip moisturizers!
It’s very interesting to me to see the differences on the same airline between the meals served on flights depending on where they originate. On the flight out of Chicago we had very westernized meals and the infant meal included jars of baby food and bottles of formula. On the flight out of Seoul, the infant meal was hot cereal and fruit juice and each of the 3 meals served to the adults included octopus in some form, mostly on a cold salad. I think the sight of the actual suction cups is the most disturbing for me. The color doesn’t do too much for me either and I am left to wonder: In America they add that red color to those imitation crab legs to make them look like real crab meat; in Asia do they add that purple color into the octopus? I’m not sure which would be more troublesome for me, that the color is real or that the color is fake?
We landed in DC to the first real snow storm on the East coast. I kept thinking as I looked at the map, We’re flying close enough to Indiana, can you just open the door and toss us out and save us 5-6 hours of flight time? But we landed in snow and as we waited to board, our layover went from one hour to 2 hours to 3 hours. Finally they announced “Let’s board quickly; small plane, gate check as many items as you can and we’ll get out of here while we’ve got a window for departure.” And this is where the 33 hours of travel and very little sleep caught up with me. “15 minutes to departure” turned into “We’re 6th in line to be de-iced” and then 3 hours on the runway…. And I had gate checked the diaper/food bag. Thank God for small favors that, after bouncing off the walls for the last few hours of the previous flight and in the terminal, Conrad crashed and Vivi, who had boarded with a full belly and a clean diaper, also slept but the longer we sat there I knew it would just be a matter of time before she needed a new diaper and her next bottle. The Attendant was really very sweet about it. She gave me a plastic trash bag and when the time came for a new diaper I tore holes in the corners and stuck Viv’s legs through, lining it with paper towels to try and absorb whatever might need to be absorbed. Just call me MacGuyver. She never did get hungry but in case she did the Attendant had given me some oatmeal that they kept around for the Captain. It was thankfully enough to get us into the Terminal in Indy, and reunited with our bags. If I had not been a. so angry with myself for dropping the ball and putting my poor daughter in that position, and b. so bone-weary tired and desperate to get home and to a bed, I could have seen the humor in it and taken a picture so that we could all get a good laugh about it. And quite honestly I’m still not really laughing about it, wasn’t even sure I could own up to being such a thoughtless traveler in a blog but hey, as the list says “Bad decisions make for good stories”. And maybe our experience will help someone else to remember: no matter how tired you are, no matter how “small” the plane is or how desperate you are to get away quickly, never, ever, EVER check the diaper bag. I mean, come on, what was I THINKING???
But we made it home, 36 hours door to door, and found the house and Barney in better condition than I have kept them these last few years since the kids arrived (maybe Heinz’s Aunt and Uncle would move in with us for good). And Bethli had prepared a wonderful meal for us so I breathed a big sigh: my wish had come true, halfway around the world, I was home for Christmas.
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