The big journey (this will be a long one, look out)

Well I've gotten several requests now to update the blog, so here goes.

I'd like to start with my last night in Pittsburgh. My mom and I had a few friends (Tara, Maira, Shannon, and Oscar) over the house for a nice dinner and just to say some final goodbyes. I still hadn't even begun to pack and was feeling very overwhelmed. My favorite neighbor ever, Jaye, came over to have cake with us at the end and everyone hung around working on my mom's jigsaw puzzle. I was about to excuse myself from the party to go start packing, when Oscar and Jaye left and I was left with Maira and Shannon, who SO graciously offered to help me pack. Let me tell you, they were two little miracle worker bees. They had me completely packed in 2 hours. They rolled clothes, organized my stuff, advised on a few extra things I should take, yelled at me when I tried to take stupid things (my stapler is the prime example:). It was a dream having them there, so thanks again ladies.

Around 12:30am they headed out along with me, to go say my goodbyes to Hernaldo. I got him at work and took him home. We stopped to hang out for a few hours and around 4am I knew it was time for goodbye. It was a tearful one, but as I told him, it was an "Hasta luego" and not an "Adios"... I'll really miss him. Maira, you can say "I told you so."

I got home, showered, slept for a few hours, woke up, ate leftover chicken (my schedule was all out of wack at this point), and then headed to the airport. I kept my cool until I was told one of the suitcases was 7 lbs overweight, and I had to move things around, right there in the middle of the ticketing area. I did so, luckily there wasn't a huge line and the lady was nice and patient, and that was that. I unfortunately had to put all that extra weight into my carry-on, which made it ridiculously heavy. I had two big carry-ons to deal with. Usually I just have one small one and my purse, but I just had too much stuff (hey, I am MOVING to a foreign country!). It was a pain but I don't regret bringing it all.

So, the flight to Charlotte was a breeze. Other than the embarrassment of trying to fit my huge suitcase in the overhead, which DID work, it was fine - I sat next to a Jerome Bettis look-alike who was wearing a Pirates hat and a terrible towel out his left back pocket (crip-style:). He helped me with my suitcases and was very sweet.

In the Charlotte airport, I sat around, wrote my mom an e-mail, and cried. I tried not to, but I felt so alone and cut-off from the world. Little things kept happening that I wanted to text to my friends, but I couldn't, because my cell phone was gone. I missed my mom. I missed my friends. I got over it quickly, though, when I stumbled across a place called "Casa Rum" - a restaurant dedicated to Bacardi. The cute latino bartender, Eddie, called me babydoll and sweetie, which got him extra tips for sure :) I had two gin&tonics (I know, I know, I just wasn't in a rum mood) and chatted with a British lady, an old black women from NYC, and a 19 year old deep-water construction worker (the guys that build underwater and have to dive like 200 feet) from Detroit. Eventually they all left me and I ate a cuban sandwich.

The plane to Munich wasn't bad. I sat next to a cute and friendly French guy who tried, in vain, to get my personal movie screen to work. Finally we told the flight attendant and I had to have my "computer" restarted, but then it worked - what a miserable flight it would have been without any movies. I watched "I Love You, Man" with Paul Rudd, which Tara would have found HILARIOUS - I kept thinking of her through the whole thing. I liked it, too, but I kept wanting to laugh out loud. After that I ate my sad little airplane pasta dinner to an episode of Monk I'd already seen, but I knew I was getting to sleepy to stay awake through another movie. My French buddy watched Star Trek, then 17 Again starring Zac Efron :) He was nice.

The Munich airport is AWESOME. I flew through Frankfurt last time and seriously wanted to shoot myself the whole time I was in that airport. This one isn't *small* but it's well set-up, it has better shops/restaurants, and is brighter and friendlier (the Frankfurt airport looks like a warehouse, and the people are mean). I missed breakfast on the plane because I slept through it so I bought a little sandwich and a bottle of water for 8 EUR (ripoff). I felt cool I even had euros, though, leftover from my Berlin trip last time around. I had trouble not falling asleep at the gate waiting for the plane. When I got on the plane, I fell asleep before we took off, and woke up when people were starting to get off the plane.

In the Prague airport, I got my things without a problem (no lost luggage, yay!), went to exchange all my dollars, got money out of the ATM (since I didn't have that many dollars, just about enough for the taxi), and bought more minutes for my Czech cell phone. I felt very in-the-know this time around - I know the currency well and how much I need for this and that, I knew how to do my cell phone, it just felt nice to arrive and not be so lost.

I stopped by the office in the taxi to get the keys to my temporary apartment and saw Jose and Naima for a brief moment. I was SO happy to see them, but probably looked like a zombie - I was such a wreck. I got to the apartment also without a problem, and it's very nice. I unpacked everything first thing, because I hate living out of suitcases. Took a shower, which was the GREATEST THING EVER - I felt sooo icky from 18 hours of flying/layovers and just felt worlds better with hot water pouring over my head.

After that I turned on the TV to try to find something to watch, without luck. Every channel is in German - I even found King of Queens but it's dubbed in German. I did find one channel with Arabic/Persian music videos, which has been on since I arrived. At least I enjoy that, even if I can't understand it all. There are a ton of porn channels, but they're not actually porn, they are just advertisements of stillframes of naked girls with phone numbers to call. Seriously there are like 30 of those channels. And they're all in German, too. :)

And that brings me to now. I arrived to the apartment around 2pm. After I fell asleep after the shower, I slept until about 6pm on the couch, then went to the bed and slept until about 11pm. I woke up and am still tired, but I wanted to pack my bag for the office tomorrow and just get myself organized. I also wanted to update this, because the longer I wait, the more there is to write.

If anyone actually made it through reading this whole thing, kudos to you.

Summary... trip went as well as it could have, I miss everyone in Pittsburgh, but am really happy to be back here at the same time :) I'm super excited to go to work tomorrow and see everybody.

Fin!!