Home, Sweet Home

After a very long day of travel on October 15th--flying out of Rhodes at 07:00 EEST, being stuck in the airport at Athens for nine hours, and finally landing in London at 07:20 BST/GMT--and the better part of the 16th spent flying from London to Vancouver, and then Seattle, I finally made it back to the good old United States of America. I was really hoping to make it all the way back on the 15th, but couldn't get my flights lined up... stupid Olympic Air. I had attempted to buy a ticket out of Rhodes that lined up better with my other flights, but they didn't like my credit card. Or my debit card. Or my parents' credit cards. And then I found out that they won an award from the European Regional Airline Association as Regional Airline of the Year. The extra day in transit did have one bright side though: I was able to meet Robert Carlyle, who plays Dr. Nicholas Rush on Stargate Universe. He was on the same flight back to Vancouver, so I was able to shake his hand and chat with him for a bit before getting ready to board.

You can actually clear American customs in Vancouver--I guess to save time on the other end?--and it actually ended up being more of a pain to get there than it was to get through. I had to show my boarding pass to about 8 different people (just in case you somehow managed to make it through the previous seven people without showing it) and go through Canadian security (where my bag got searched... apparently the Guinness candle I got for mom freaked the scanner out). When I actually got to customs the guy asked me where I was heading, if I had a job, then talked politics with me for awhile when I told him I had just resigned my council position, before stamping my immigration card and waving me through.

My old college roommate David met me at Sea-Tac, and we hopped some light rail and a bus back to his place. I spent a couple nights there recuperating, which was great... I really didn't feel like hopping the train home right away, after all the traveling I had done in the last couple days. I got to spend some time with other friends as well, and had a great time playing Dominion and drinking (and then going out for another drink; the cajun tots at McMenamins are really good). On the afternoon of the 18th I got on a bus (it was supposed to be a train, but there was a derailment holding it up) back to Wenatchee, got picked up by dad, and got to sleep in my own bed for the first time in over a month.

Total time away from home: 37 days

Total time out of the US: 34 days

Total miles walked: A LOT... I actually lost 5-10 pounds while over there

Right now I'm going through all of my pictures, trying to get as many as possible labeled before I start forgetting what things are. I'll be putting more of them up with the others at that point, but even after repeats there are over 1200 of them, and there's no way I'm posting them all. I do also still plan on typing out my journal from the trip on another blog... I'll throw up a link when the first part of that is ready to go.