Back in the USA

We are here at my parents' house in Santa Cruz. It was a long day, but we made it. All the flights were good -- as good as an 11 hour flight can be with a 7 month old baby sandwiched between 2 men, right? Because we weren't booked on the flight until 11pm the night before, we were paired up, but separated from each other on the plane, all of us in center seats. But all the kids were great travelers and I couldn't be prouder of them.

I am about to crawl in bed to sleep off the past few days of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion. I promise there are more stories to come and I keep thinking of so many things that I wanted to blog about Egypt, but never had time to share. For now I'll just share a picture from this morning.

A little background: I had spent most of the night packing, the entire morning waiting for a shuttle, then a bus to the airport, and sat at the airport in numerous lines for hours. Finally made it onto a plane, but then sat on the tarmac until we took off at 7:00pm. Then we arrived at this beautiful, luxurious hotel in Athens. Gorgeous bathroom with a soaking tub and steam shower, hardwood floors, a feather bed over the mattress. Ah, if this is refugee status, I think I can cope. I imagined waking up at 10am and enjoying the amazing hotel breakfast and maybe a little sightseeing in Athens before catching a late afternoon flight out. Then Josh broke the news that we had to leave for the airport at 4:00am so we could get the early flight to Frankfurt to catch the 10am flight to SFO.

I was able to crawl into bed at midnight, but I couldn't sleep because I was too stressed about how crappy I was going to feel when I had to get up at 3:45. Those "hurry up and fall asleep because you only have 3 hours and 17 minutes until you have to get up" thoughts really don't promote peaceful sleep, you know?

 

So this is me not being a happy camper at 4am. And it was freezing. Ah, Athens, I hardly knew ye.