The Longest Day of My Life, Literally!!!!

Yesterday, wait, was that yesterday for you guys? Well, Wednesday anyway, I got up about 4:30.... the flight wasn't leaving until 9:30, but I wanted to shower and go over the checklist 1 more time. My 7am we were headed out the door to drop Mc off at her "Aunt Cat's" and go to the airport. Luckily, saying goodbye was not nearly as dramatic as I had expected it to be, and having Blake as a distraction was an excellently planned trick..... she just gave me a hug, said goodbye and was on her way. No tears, yeah!!!!

Our flight left about 30 minutes late, and we were surprised to see our old pastor Ridley and his wife Lisa on our flight.... for some reason it made me feel better and less alone. :) We landed in Chicago, and had about an hour layover. Our flight there was delayed a little as well, but we finally took off and were headed for Beijing!!!! the flight was fine and although the last two hours drug on, it was much better than I had expected it to be.... (I'll tell you what though, those peeps in business class and first class are living the life.... that section on an international flight in NICE!!!!) I was able to catch about a 2 hour nap but that was it.... I'm not great at sleeping on a plane anyway and the adrenaline that had been pumping through my veins all morning would not allow me to settle down. Anyway, we landed in Beijing about 3:30 their time (2:30am Nashvegas time) and had to go thru immigration, customs, baggage claim, etc before we met our guide and driver.

Lydia, our guide is super sweet and her english is excellent! We will not see her today, but Saturday she has a day full of stuff planned for us!
The traffic getting to the hotel was horrible. We hit rush hour and what should have taken 30 minutes took 2 hours.... with no AC!!! There were three families in the van, and I think we were all DONE by that point. Once we got to the hotel, we just checked in said our goodbyes and went on to our rooms.

DP and I did walk down to the local "supermarket", a term I will use loosely, and buy several bottles of water, and a bottle of wine. we came back ordered room service and showered. I was cracking up as I put on my PJs and looked at the spread..... Water from Switzerland, Wine from Australia, and a little "Japanese Fried Rice" from room service. All while sitting in my hotel in China!!!!

After that, 8:15pm to be exact I took an ambien, called mom to tell her we were safe and cashed out! We had been up at that point for 27 hours not including my little catnap on the pane and we were exhausted!!!!

This morning I woke up about 4:30, so 8 hrs of sleep did me right. We're off to see the GReat Wall today. I'm really excited! Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures tomorrow!

RP