[caption id="attachment_103" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Jan, Kim and the man on guard"]
We are home! I am so glad we cleaned the house before we left. We are complete noodles! Below is a post I wrote hours ago on the plane from Rome to Chicago. I thought I would make sense of it before publishing; but honestly -- I have no brain power left. We just got a call from the airport -- good news. Jan's bag arrived. They are bringing it by taxi. We won't last till it gets here, but they understand and will leave it on the stoop. We'll post pictures tomorrow!
Today is our 17th anniversary. It will be the longest day Jan and I have ever spent together. And I mean that literally. It will last for 32 hours; about 23 of them in daylight.
We have three hours to go on the leg of our trip that is the flight from Rome to Chicago. We left our hotel at 6:10am. We've been traveling for 14 hours and it's now 12:10pm CST. On this flight alone they have already fed us a snack, a meal and a snack. I think we still get another meal. Time is very weird. Because we are traveling with the sun, all the food has essentially been lunch. We have seen Marley and Me (made me cry), Get Smart (made me laugh) and three TV shows, in addition to repeatedly watching the video of where the plane is, where the daylight is, what the time is everywhere, etc in English and Italian. They asked for a doctor over the loud speaker right about when we got to Canada. It must not be too serious – we haven't been detoured anywhere as far as we can tell. We have about 7.5 hours until we get home.
I feel so out of it. I wonder what our garden looks like at this point. Have we missed the lilacs? Or are they in full bloom? How is our dog and will she want to come home? (Thanks Peggy!) And how is our cat? How mad is she and how long will it take us to catch her and get her back in the cat carrier? (Thanks Jill and Mike!)
In order to have something to ease reentry after such a great adventure, I am making a list of what I am looking forward to:
Celebrate my anniversary alone with my honey. 'Nuf said.
See the kids and grandkids. It's been too long.
Communication and conversation with all of you! We have been surrounded by people talking on cell phones for the past three weeks: Greeks and Turks like their cell phones! It's been strange to be in the midst of the technology and not be able to use it. And regular internet access will be wonderful. Thanks to all of you who sent us notes. Our internet access was sparse – so getting the blogs posted was most of what we could do. I look forward to conversations!
I am ready to cook and eat a home-cooked meal! Three weeks of eating in restaurants is more than enough. We have walked and walked almost every day of our trip. Jan seems to have lost weight with the combination of restaurant food and walking. That didn't work as well for me.
Golf!!!! I know all my friends are getting into mid-season form. I am going to have to get it together quickly. I'll be losing a lot of quarters in the meantime.
Awesome trip and blog, Kim!
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