It Begins...

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I arrived to stormy and humid Burlington Vermont yesterday at 11:30 Eastern time, 8:30 San Diego time. I had been in flight, or in terminal since 8pm the night before. It was a bit of a mess to get to me to the airport, I kept holding off on saying my good byes for days. It seemed like a good idea to just keep scheduling time to see friends, up until a half hour before I should be checking my bags at the airport.
My fuel was on 'R' ( I drive an '85 Mercedes diesel station wagon, everything in German, but I still managed to translate R into E(mpty)). So I was already late to get back to the house to pack my things up and head off to the airport, so I was really pushing the wagon to hit 120 kph, which I assumed is what ate up the reserve tank (maybe that's what the R is for? Reserve?). I made it half way up the first big hill and it had enough, sputtered out and shut off. Crap. I was less than a mile away. I called up Kathrin and she went to work loaded my bags, I didn't even get to say good bye to the dogs. Maybe it was better that way, I'd hate to get choked up over saying good bye to the company mascots.
I hadn't shed a tear through any of my good byes, almost with Erin, she got all teary eyed and I almost did too. Instead I just hugged her over and over again to keep from seeing her sad.
Anyway, Kathrin zoomed by the Mercedes and picked me up, we rushed off to the airport with 20 minutes to go before I needed to check in. Of course we made it in time and it turns out the plane would be about 1.5 hours late, good thing because my computer bag wasn't loaded into the car. So off Kathi went again to get it and run back. What a mess.
I had an over night flight, I packed my pillow so I was able to sleep the whole way through, or nearly, adjustments are absolutely necessary on long flights, unless you like a stiff neck. Me, not so much.
I had a layover in JFK about 5 hours later, the layover ended up being about 3 or 4 hours. It was an absolute mess there. Apparently the East Coast suffers from rain, terrible down pours and terrible thunderstorms. I love it. I hadn't seen a good storm since I left Vermont almost 6 years ago. San Diego has pretty boring weather, it's always the same, sunny and 75. Ha, yes, it's kind of nice from time to time.
Anyway, JFK was a mess, an ugly industrial warehouse mess of an airport. If you've never been there, let me tell you, it's ugly. Ugly and big, made uglier by the awesome dark rain they were having. No matter where I went people were complaining about having to miss flights, delays, spending the night in the airport, blah blah. Flight staff weren't showing up because of the rain, flights couldn't leave because they had to scrounge up some old retired flight attendants and bribe them to work during such threatening weather.
Whatever problems they were having, I slept through them. Finally got on my plane, and slept through that too. Made it to Burlington Vermont and et Blue lost my big luggage. Lame. Had to suffer through a 30 minutes car ride to my sisters house, the suffering was inflicted by my brother in laws mother. The woman can talk, can't hear so well, but good lord the woman goes on and on and ugh.
I get back to her house, say hey to family. A few hours later there is about 16 family members in the 4 bedroom house. It's hard to find hiding places, but I'm well practiced and manage to hide. It's noticed. I'm accused of me anti-social. Yes, sometimes I am, but give me a break! I just moved out of my home, and I'm about to live in Germany for a year. I think I deserve some alone time, no?
I'm getting better though, I need a good 6 hours to be anti-social and them I warm up. We are about to load into vans and hed south to the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream factory. I'm excited, I've been there before not in about 10 years. And this time there a little kids, so I think they will enhance the whole experience I am camera ready.

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