I woke up in my own bed, in North America, at 3am. I’d been having a dream that the sun was shining in my windows and I was asleep but had to squinch my eyes shut to keep out the brightness. It would have been 10am in Sweden. When I opened my eyes, I was startled to find that it was pitch dark.
Spooky and Bowser have been purring and rubbing and drooling (yeah, Spook’s a drooler). They’re both so happy to have us home. Bowser spent hours last night curled up around my head, kneading at my scalp in some kind of kitty ecstasy.
Our flight home was completely uneventful…just the way I like it. While I wouldn’t say that international economy plane rides are tons of fun, I kept feeling so grateful that I wasn’t trying to amuse a small child. I got to read all of The Time Traveler’s Wife. I edited Kaleb and Karin’s wedding pictures until my computer ran out of juice. I watched a couple silly movies. The airplane we were on (Scandinavian Airlines) has a little touch monitor on the back of each seat. You could play games (sudoku, mahjong), watch moives (Monsters v. Aliens, How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)), and the coolest part, watch what was going on in front of or below the airplane. They had a forward and a downward camera, so you could watch take-off and landing and when the clouds parted, you could see the land far below.
Even when we were super-high (36,000 feet), the clouds moved away, and we were able to get an amazing view of Greenland. Glaciers. Mountains. Craters. Icebergs. Coastline. It was really stunning. Those are some big glaciers. Big, receding glaciers.
When we landed in Chicago, we got close to the runway and then (I think we were going too fast) lifted up again and circled for a while before re-landing. I hold it as a big personal victory that I didn’t throw up. There were some other very green people sitting nearby.
When you fly into Chicago, you get your bags, go through immigrations and customs and then re-check your bags before taking a train to another terminal to fly out. I got some caramel corn from Nuts on Clark. mmmm
Dad picked us up at the airport, and we and our bags all made it home unscathed. Since we woke up at 5am Stockholm time, and didn’t sleep on the plane, it was a looong day. Bryan got a burst of energy and unpacked and mowed. I finished my first cut of the wedding pictures (it takes a long time to look through 2,700 images!).
The kids arrive with Granny this afternoon, so Bryan and I enjoyed one last dinner date before crashing hard into bed just before 8pm.
I’m surprised at how fine I’ve felt being away from the kids. Andrew sounds completely at home in Texas. When we Skyped with him the other day, he kept saying, “When you come down here…” He even cheerfully declared, “I don’t even remember Madison!” So he’s at home. Sounds like Syliva has been fine too. Probably more than fine! And Granny sounded like she was having a wonderful time with them. I do miss my girl, and I am really looking forward to having that little baby body close to mine again. My mom called it a bungee umbilical cord. It stretches (farther and farther) and then it goes, “Boooiiioooiiing, back to Mom.”
So the kids come home early afternoon. That’ll give me time to pack for Jack’s weekend (we leave tomorrow), clean up the house a bit, do a finer-grained edit of the wedding photos, and relax a while before life gets real busy again.
Thanks for everyone who followed our trip and who commented on my posts. It felt really, really cool to be traveling so far from home but knowing I was connecting with so many people I care about. What a neat thing this Internet is! Pictures from the the trip are/will be all available here.
Take care!
~Althea