Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig!

Greetings from 90-degree Davis, California! Like Nikki, I too have a song in my head... "On The Road Again" by Willie Nelson. This has now officially become the theme song for my life... yee haw! Now that I am blessedly back in California and the great USA, I find myself in a packing and cleaning frenzy as I prepare to ship my life to Seattle... in four days! Eek!

But, for the moment, I am going to put aside that task and type up some remaining notes about my final day in Scotland and my journey back to America! (Neil Diamond, anyone??)

So... after seeing the movie, Hancock (I advise this one as a rental, fyi, especially if you love Jason Bateman!), I ate at The Conan Doyle, a quiet pub between the Cathedral and the hotel. I then decided (with a remaining 20 Pound Note burning a hole in my pocket) I would go for one final walk along The Royal Mile to see if I could splurge on a lil' somethin' Scottish for myself. And after walking around for about 45 minutes, I trudged back the hotel, empty-handed, and began my final pack-up for my lengthy travel back to the US.

Rise and shine at 3:45am on Friday to take a *cold* (absolutely no hot or warm water until the final minute... special) shower in my mansion with friends and I packed up my final items and headed down to check out at 4:15am. Because the sun never really sets in Scotland (at least not during the summer months), it felt like it was about 8am when I left the hotel for my brisk 10-minute walk to the Airlink bus stop on Waverly Bridge. I settled in for that 25-minute bus ride to the airport and took in all the final sites and sounds of Scotland along the way.

I made it past the security point where they size-up the luggage and all the way through security when, yet again, one of my bags was pulled aside for inspection. I bought two 120 *gram* jars of honey in Montalcino as gifts, and they had already survived in my carry-on luggage from Rome to London Heathrow, and from London Heathrow to Edinburgh... but the two ladies at security could not comfortably let me through with my "suspiciously sized" honey jars! Puh-lease! I couldn't do the math, and neither could they, so their answer... "I'm sorry, love, but we're gonna have to take these" (said in heavy Scottish brogue). I was STEAMING about this, but there was no convincing to be done, so I am certain that those two women consumed that honey with their morning tea.

My bmi flight to Heathrow took off on time and after landing and walking 14 miles through Terminal 2, onto the shuttle bus and then through two more security checkpoints (and one more personal pat-down and luggage examination) I had SIX hours to burn before my long-haul flight to Phoenix, Arizona. So, I had one final British breakfast (and was able to break that 20 Pound Note, finally!), I settled in to read an entire 230-page book while listening to my iPod.

And, finally, my gate was posted on the departure board! One more shuttle bus, and one final passport checkpoint, and it was 45-minutes to take off! I charged my iPod, spent the remainder of that 20 Pound Note, and boarded the plane. Approx. 9 hours, 7 or so laps around the plane, three movies and two meals later... I was in the USA, on the 4th of July!

Customs was a breeze and my free shuttle picked me up easily and quickly after I made the call from MY CELL PHONE (oh how I missed this little luxury) for my pick-up! 20 minutes later I was checked in at the hotel, boarding passes for Saturdays flights were printed from the complimentary computer and I was finally able to realize that, to my body, it was now 2am... no wonder I was feeling a bit tired! I took a quick dip in the outdoor pool, sat in the 104-degree heat for about two minutes, took a shower and called my Uncle John (my Mom's brother) who lives in Phoenix. I rallied to spend about 3 hours with him, walking down memory lane and driving around Phoenix to see the various sites that I remembered from my childhood visits to Grandma Betty and her POOL!

I was asleep by 10pm or so and, at 2am, I was wide awake. So, I watched mindless TV (another luxury, I'm embarrassed to say, I missed) for a few hours and was in the lobby for my 5am shuttle to the airport. 6:20am, my flight to Seattle took off on time and I was off on my 9th flight. With 50 minutes of layover in Seattle, I bought sushi (at 9:45am, yes indeedy) and devoured it on the plane before my 10th and final flight took off at 10:10 for Sacramento.

And that brings us to today. It is 5:40am and I have been up for about 3 hours. I am clearly not over my jet-lag and my mind is now racing with the billions of little things that I have to accomplish in the next few days as I pack up to vacate my condo of 4 years and make the move to Seattle!

Thank you, once again, for reading, and like Nikki, I highly advise blogging when you travel. And as much of a nay-sayer as I was at the beginning... it truly was fun to blog! Hope you are all doing well!