Welcome Home, Jerk

Saturday May 7th: The alarm went off at 4:00. Our flight was at 6:20. I hadn't slept much during the night. My clothes were set out and I'd done most my packing the night before so at least it didn't take me long to get ready to go. I decided against wearing contacts because I hoped to get some sleep on the planes. We had 3 flights to take: Berlin to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Portland, and Portland to Eugene.

The first shuttle to the airport was leaving at 4:45. By the time we got outside it was 4:30 and there was already a line waiting for the driver to arrive. I hadn't counted on that. We counted back and we were 9 and 10 in line. I knew the van only held 7 passengers. We'd wouldn't be the first ones there. Kat was getting nervous and we considered calling a cab, but it really was a very short distance to the airport and we had our tickets and didn't need to check the stupid rolling bag anymore so I was betting we'd be fine.

The driver arrived in a taxi at 4:45 on the nose and started loading luggage and people onboard. As predicted we didn't make the first group, but he returned in 10 minutes for us. We got to the airport by 5:00, found our terminal and started through security. Kat seemed to breeze right through, but I was having more difficulties. I kept fumbling and dropping things and generally making everything harder than it needed to be. I blame it on being tired.

I finally got myself put together enough to get through security and on to our gate. I thought I might have some time to blog, but it was already time to board. Our breakfasts consisted of whatever snacks we had left in our snack bags and a weird cheese sandwich we were given. The flight went by quickly enough, I may have even nodded off for part of it, and soon we were in Amsterdam.

In Amsterdam we needed to print our boarding passes for the rest of the journey. We found a transfer terminal soon enough and managed to get our tickets without any problems. However, since our next flight would be with Delta and going to America we had to start the crazy security gauntlet. Our gate was listed as D1, but it was more of a mock gate. It was just a boxed off room which served as the first passport check and interrogation. When we came out the other side we were told our true gate was D7. To get there we had to go through security again, which I wasn't looking forward to given my lack of coordination up to this point. I think it was here that the elastic of my money-belt started to unravel and catch on things.

I got through though and we found our gate and sat down for a few minutes. We even had time to go get a drink and a pastry from the nearby Starbucks and I was able to make a quick update to the blog, but the wifi was too slow to get any pictures uploaded. Before long it was boarding time.

The plane was similar to the one we'd come over on, with the touchscreens on the back of the headrests. I was hoping that no one would be tapping the back of my head this time, and luckily it turned out that the seat behind me was empty. Kat and I decided to watch the Revenant together along the way. It got to the brutal bear attack scene and I was completely engrossed so I didn't notice when right next to me Kat was starting to have a fainting epsiode. I eventually turned and looked to see her starting to slump over toward me. I caught her and held her for a moment as she twitched briefly and then started coming to again. I was pretty freaked out by it, but she seemed to recover okay even if she was freaked out by it too. The intensity of the scene had triggered something in her and she started feeling like she was going to throw up and her vision blurred and she couldn't really talk or get my attention very well. This kind of thing has happened before and she never knows what will trigger it. It seems related to low blood pressure and can sometimes happen when she stands up too fast. She'll start to get dizzy and then grab onto something, usually me, to steady herself until her head stops spinning and her vision returns and she can talk again.

We took a break from the movie, had a little something to eat and drink, and tried to calm down for a bit. We did eventually get back to the movie though and the rest of it wasn't so intense. It's a good movie and I recommend it, just watch it while laying down or something. Later we watched some more movies on our own, but nothing too intense. I watched some Bollywood melodramatic 3 hour epic with English sub-titles. After enduring that the 9 hour flight seemed to go by relatively quickly.

We were given customs forms to fill out on the plane before we landed. I had to estimate the value of our fashion scarves and the little piece of art we had brought back from Europe. When we got off the plane and were herded through the customs line, yelling at us all to turn off all our scary electronic devices again, they took the form and threw it away without looking at it and instead directed us to these fancy new automated customs machines. You had to scan your passport and get your picture taken again, oh and you were told you couldn't wear glasses or hats so of course I was blind and couldn't see the buttons on the screen. What a hassle. So you take the receipt it prints out with your new pic and go stand in another line to have somebody look at both pictures and you and see if you're the same person. This guy had me take my glasses off again just for giggles. After that they direct you to another line to have someone else do the passport check again and interrogate you. After all that they didn't even want to know how much my fashion scarves cost. Welcome home, jerk.

I think there was one more security check after that where I had to unlock my bags, get out my laptop, take off my shoes and belt, empty my pockets, and get scanned and patted down all over again. Once I'd got myself finally put back together again we went in search of our final gate. Before that though I had one last chance to convert all my leftover euros, forints, crowns, and zloty. We found a currency exchange booth that was still open and got that all taken care of. We had just about a half hour to wait for our next flight.

As we were boarding and finding our seats on the plane I heard someone ask, "How was your trip to Europe?" I looked up and didn't recognize the guy at first and instead of asking "How did you know we just got back from Europe?" all that came out of my sluggish brain was "What?" He repeated himself and the voice was familiar so it finally dawned on me it was Jared. We hadn't seen Jared in ages and he looked completely different. Plus there was no way we expected him to be on our plane sitting in the seat behind us. Once I recovered and we greeted each other properly we chatted for most of the flight home. He was flying out to load up some stuff that was stored in Eugene and U-Haul it back to Reno the same day. He hadn't expected to see anyone, let alone us. It was a nice, but far too short reunion. If I had only been more alert and not so strung out after a full day of travel I'd have been able to give him my full attention and made more of it. As it was we said our goodbyes when we reached the ground in Eugene and parted ways with a hug and a promise to see each other again sometime.

Kat had organized a cab for us and it pulled up just as we stepped out into the parking lot. A few moments later we were finally home. The lawn was wild and overgrown, but otherwise everything looked to be in order. In fact when we got inside we found that our house-sitters had left the place cleaner than when we turned it over to them. The cats eventually all came out from hiding and we had a nice reunion with them before they all went back to pretending nothing had happened and that they hadn't missed us at all. I threw my things down and promptly went to sleep for the next 12 hours.

That finally brings us up to date. Today was spent catching up on laundry, bills, voting, booking a flight out to South Carolina in two weeks, and wrapping up my blog. I don't know when are where we'll go next, but I could sure use a break from vacation for now.