Return of the Jetlag

Friends, we are back home in Nash-Vegas! After what seemed a never-ending day, we arrived here safe and sound yesterday morning, not one minute late. Really, now that it's all over, we can say that this whole trip went surprisingly smoothly. Not one delayed flight, no accidents, lost or stolen items, broken tires, robberies, food poisonings, bed-bugs, snake bites, shark attacks, ... you get the idea. Really, the only two things we can think of that caused some "oh come on"s were our delay in Sydney due to bad communication between Air New Zealand and United Airlines and the fact that a mask we brought home didn't arrive in Nashville with us but had to be put on the next flight an delivered to our house later in the afternoon. Really, no big deal.
The flights yesterday were nice and smooth, especially the long trans-pacific one. In fact, we were lucky enough to fly on one of the new 747s, which...get this.... had a TV in the front seat (not too new, I know) AND you were able to control the program. In other words: You were able to choose between hundreds of movies, series, documentaries, cartoons, video-games, etc. and you could even stop or pause the show when you needed to eat, sleep, get up, etc.. So almost like you had the remote control to Air New Zealand's Tivo. I would say Air New Zealand redeemed itself there. Two thumbs up! Downside is that we did not sleep half as much as we wanted to, since we were too busy watching TV. :-) After that we had a ridiculous 9 hour layover in L.A.. "Luckily" the airport in L.A. is sh***y enough for one to easily waste plenty of time trying to get through immigration, customs and the next gate. So after all of that we "only" had 7.5 hours of hanging out left. Originally we wanted to go to the nearest beach, but once we had seen the horrific smog hanging over the city and the craziness out there, we decided to pass on sunshine and beach and stick with our gate. A few phonecalls, naps and book chapters later we got on our red-eye flight to Chicago (sooo boring because everyone was asleep apart from me, sitting inbetween Patrick and another lady, both snoozing away while I was WIDE awake). In Chcago we had enough time for some fast food breakfast (at that point we did not care what we were eating anymore, as long as it was close to food) and then headed home to Nashville. Our friend Emily met us at the airport and took us home, were we were welcomed by posters and lots of yummy food provided by our sweet neighbors. Thank you!!! We thought we'd crash and not get up until tomorrow, but we did surprisingly well. Patrick took a longer nap around lunchtime, while I was out getting gas, dropping off photos, doing laundry, unpacking, etc.. As soon as I sat down, however, it knocked me out, so that I took my long nap when Patrick got up. We were both up again later that afternoon and fiddled around a bit until the jetlag hit again at around 10 pm. Patrick was wide awake by 5 am while I slept like a rock until 10 this morning. Really, we felt fine all day and now it's 11 pm and nobody is the slightest bit tired. I guess we'll just wait until it knocks us out again with another violent attack of suddenly being dead-tired.

All in all it's good to be back. I think Patrick is slightly more excited than I am, as he has been anxious to get back to his work. I personally could have stayed out a few more weeks, but it's also good to be back home with our friends, plants (I've really missed then, they are my babies!) and what is familiar. Plus, it gives us both some time now to get our errands run and still have some time to prepare for the next semester/school year. God knows there is enough work to be done...

Two more things before it's time to sign off and read a bit:
Speaking of reading... we both got around to reading George Lakoff's "Don't Think Of An Elephant". What a great and interesting read! You should pick it up and read it if you get a chance, it's definitely worth it.
Last thing: I've posted most of our digital pictures, which you can access following this mega-link (slideshow under "Bildershow anschauen" above top right picture): http://de.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/patrickandlydia/album?.dir=/8380re2&.src=ph&.tok=phQzxKFBJ9g7mocT

Hope it works...

Good night!