For months, I have thought that needing to sit still on an airplane for a long time with the ability to finish a few books back to back sounded like a dream come true. As a matter of fact, I can sleep anywhere, anytime, so if I slept for 8 or so hours, the time would go by quickly. It didn’t. Maybe the problem was starting out with a 2.5 hr flight, and then sitting for 4 hrs in JFK. Who knows? But, I didn’t sleep. Not 20 minutes. And after about 5 hrs, my butt hurt. And then, not much later, my legs hurt. There was just no getting comfortable. It was a long flight. It just was. I was really ready to get off that plane. And sleepy. In the back of my mind, there was this nagging thought, “How are we going to do this with a baby in our laps?” But, on the other hand, it’s over. And by the time we got to the hotel, it was bedtime (here, at least.) And we were tired. So, we slept. And we woke up on the right time schedule. For now, I am counting this trial a blessing, because we appear to be adjusted to the time schedule. So, it was a sleepless night, and I could have used an epidural. Must be time for a baby, except in the hospital, they starve you, and on an international airplane flight they feed you to death…., and sometimes people spill apple juice in your lap. She’s going to be worth every minute of it.
For those of you who were curious about these things, our flight did go up, as in north, over the top of the earth. We didn’t actually see the pole in the north, but we went over Canada, and spent some time looking for the Deadliest Catch guys over the Bering Straits. For the Risk fans out there, we crossed over Irkutsk, and I am pretty sure we got near Kamchatka. We saw tundra, lots of it, frozen, mountainous, snow covered and icy. It was barren. The inflight thermometer read -70 degrees (outside of the plane) for most of the flight. It’s really a good thing that we didn’t need to eject. We came south and passed Beijing, but didn’t see the Great Wall from the sky, because we weren’t looking at the right time.
On the way home, our long leg is only to California. That flight is only 12 hrs. That will be better. At least, that is what I am going to keep telling myself. (We may need someone to help move us to California.)
Fuzhou Time
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