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Published: December 6th 2010
And we're home. It's kind of a strange concept, as "home" has taken on a whole new meaning in the past 14 months - 418 days, to be exact!! We left Bangkok to begin our marathon Thursday by a 5-hour red-eye to Seoul, South Korea. As the airport lies only a few miles from the North Korean border, we were understandably concerned about the political tensions in the area. All was quiet (VERY quiet) in the airport, though - you'd never know anything was wrong. We got a room at the airport's transit hotel for 6 hours of our layover - kind a of cool experience, though we slept through the whole thing. After our much-needed nap, we devoured a few burgers and waited out the last 4 hours of our layover before boarding our 10-hour flight to Seattle, Washington. And there we landed, finally back on American soil. Even the customs officer was super-friendly, noting all of our "countries visited" on our immigration form and asking about our trip. We met up with our friends Sam and Lexie (and their son Harrison)...
And I'd love to tell you that we went on a major sightseeing spree in Seattle, as
it was our first time in the Pacific Northwest. However, our internal clocks dictated that we needed sleep. So after a quick lunch (hot wings and roast beef sandwiches - I nearly cried), we hit the hay at about 3:30pm and awoke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed...at 12:45am. Sigh. Our 41-hour Thursday was FINALLY over.
As everyone was up early, we had an early lunch/mini-sightseeing tour of the harbor area in downtown Seattle. Much different than I'd pictured - lots of red brick and northeastern-style architecture (I'd been expecting more contemporary and ultra-modern, like California, I guess). We had some yummy seafood on the water and enjoyed the rare sunny day, walking to Pike Street Market and visiting the first Starbuck's...and then 3pm hit. And we crashed again. This time we managed to sleep until about 4am, but was fairly bounded out of bed because it was time for one more snowboarding spree before returning to the land of the tropics (aka Florida). Me, Jeremy, and first-timer Sam headed up the road to Crystal Mountain, hugging the side of spectacular Mount Rainier, and we spent a blissful 6 hours in the most powdery-soft snow we could ever imagine. We thought the
snow and boarding in NZ was great - HA!!!! We knew
nothing. Our best day boarding in NZ didn't even remotely compare to the lovely, soft, fluffy, fresh powder nestled on the slopes of Crystal Mountain - and the locals were saying (and I quote) "This is a crap day up here." If Saturday was a crap day, I'd LOVE to see a good day!! Sam did great for his first attempt, although the poor guy was understandably sore and exhausted by the end of the day. Jeremy and I were flying down the intermediate runs like we'd never missed a day - it was winter heaven!!
And apparently the cold has followed us home, as we're now in Palm Beach and we have frost/freeze warnings tonight. We red-eyed (again) to Newark, New Jersey, and finally arrived back in Florida at 10:30am yesterday, December 5th. Our parents met us at the airport and we headed down to a waterfront tiki bar for a big Sunday brunch - yum!!! Dinner last night was at my beloved Carrabba's, as delicious as I remembered. Then we were finally reunited with Denali, our blue-eyed husky, who was very, very, very happy to see
us!!!
So...here we are. Experiencing reverse culture shock as we get used to American accents again. Driving on the right side of the road. Free refills on soda. Six lanes of traffic. Cell phones. Kraft macaroni and cheese. That kind of thing. We had the most incredible 14 months of our lives, and I know neither of us would trade the places we saw and the friends we made for anything. To anyone even remotely considering an extended trip abroad, I whole-heartedly urge you to do it. You will learn so much more than you ever could in a classroom or watching shows on the Travel Channel (although I'm still a Travel Channel addict). It's a big, big world out there, and there is so much to see and experience. Jeremy and I both feel very fortunate to have been able to do something like this. Thank you to everyone who read and commented on our blogs, we hope you enjoyed them and made you feel like we were still "staying in touch." To all our friends in Florida - we're home now, you know where to find us, so come on by!! To all our new friends that
we've made elsewhere - thank you so much for all the wonderful memories and the great times we shared. We hope to see all of you again one day soon.
Until then, happy travels to you all...we're hanging up our backpacks for, well, a little while, anyway...
(Wink, wink).
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Julie
non-member comment
Welcome Home
Thanks for all the blogs, I have been keeping everyone in the loop at the bank. What a wonderful experience.