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12:40 p.m. Thursday, July 14; home in Albuquerque for the first time since mid-May. NICE!!

I'm glad to be here. When I saw the desert, from the plane, when we came down through clouds, I cried just a little bit. I had to wipe my eyes. I thought I might cry when I saw Keith, but I didn't. My suitcases ended up being on the same flight I was, and now they're here.

Keith, Ashlee, Marty and I are going to Garduño's. I'll see Holly about 4:45 and am very much looking forward to that!

I'll put up some more pictures, observations and memories, and will complete the set of links to photos (in the file linked up near the title of this page), but for now I'm going to have a green chile chicken enchilada and other familiar foods.

THANK YOU everyone who hosted me and took me places and shared your lives and towns and made the adventure so big and memorable. Thanks to those who read the blog and cheered me on in my Quest to Document. :-)

Breakfast in Atlanta

Not a typical breakfast, and definitely not MY typical breakfast, but this morning it seems very comforting: a big Oscar Meyer hotdog with mustard, and Barq's rootbeer with lots of ice.

The line at Dunkin' Donuts was really long, I don't drink coffee anyway, and had a donut for dinner. :-)

The hotel room was really nice, I slept six hours straight (and then a bit more), their alarm AND my computer as backup went off nicely. Mine was singing in its robotic voice "Tea is ready," and the radio had a bit about Alan Rickman's Snape having been voted the most popular Harry Potter character of all. Then they played "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson.

I packed up easily, walked out and waited about two minutes for the shuttle, and was at the airport two hours and twenty minutes before the flight. It's a morning full of nice moments.

Here's something I wrote last night, about the scheduling problems:

Calmer than I used to be (on Just Add Light and Stir)

Holly's working today, so Keith will take off early to pick me up at the airport and I can ride in the new/used car he bought while I was away.

I'm not in Europe, and I'm not home.

Things happen, sometimes, and the frustrating bits are over now. I'm in a hotel in Atlanta. They have free internet without a password.

Here is my dinner:

Delta airlines paid for $6 worth of it. The package with the grapes, carrots, cheese and ranch dressing. I bought the milk, Chex mix (to go with the cheese), and the Dunkin' Donut. The Jaffa Cakes I brought with me from the UK. They wrote that on my customs form. "Cookies."

I haven't eaten yet. I'm about to. Then I'm going to take a shower without getting my hair wet (because Atlanta is a humidifier, though my room has an air conditioner). I thought of taking a bath, because my feet are swollen, but 1) it's not the UK where tubs are huge and wonderful, and 2) even though I would settle for an American tub, there's no stopper, no drain stuff of any sort, just a big scary hole with standing water down there. Eeyew. It wouldn't bother me to take a shower there, though. Nice shower curtain.

I have two beds and eight pillows. I wish I had enough time to sleep ten hours and then mosey down to the shuttle at a leisurely pace, but I can sleep eight hours and hurry down to the shuttle. That will work.

The lucky thing is that my luggage was re-checked by people who thought my plane hadn't left. And they might've been right. But between me and the plane were about 300 people lined up to go through security, and some distance between where we were and the gate where the alleged departure was. Well it was a real departure, but I missed it. Again, then, because when we got off the plane from London, half the connecting flights had been missed already. Blah blah blah, but airport for hours, and now hotel with quiet and a table and eight pillows.   <i>(I have my toiletries and some spare clothes, too.)</i>

I'm in room 104 which suits me fine. Others who were in the same long Delta-sent-us-here line were sent down the hall, up the elevator... but I was "down the hall, on the left" and mine is the first room, right off the lobby. Peachy. I'm for it.

I couldn't have a better dinner, but the restaurant attached to the hotel is a Mexican restaurant, and I was advised by a Delta employee that the hotel is nice, but the restaurant isn't as nice. So I got things I could carry cold and get to the hotel before the other bounced passengers beat me to it. The vouchers cover a room so thoroughly that they didn't even ask to see my ID, nor for a charge card.

I used to be seven time zones from home, but now I'm only two. I'm getting nearer.

"A chute, to put rubbish down the skip"

"What's THAT!?" I asked one day.

"A chute, to put rubbish down the skip," they said.

Oh.

Photos will follow. I wanted to write down the text so I could throw away some of the little pieces of paper I've been carrying around in my pockets.

The chute collapses for transport, I should add.

Learning something confusing

(This is out of chronological order and was originally to have been June 20, but I needed to find one of the photos...)


I keep needing to read things like this:






If I'm with someone local and more experienced, I just follow along like a stunned but happy puppy, but occasionally I'm by myself and have to think Very Hard. (I did a lot of following of Julie Daniel, and of David Waynforth, in such situations.)

Here's how Orangina is sold in France. Oddly.



And "Meet the Fockers" isn't funny in France, so it's renamed something about "my father-in-law":

Les Miserables

Tonight Julie and I went to see Les Miserables with her friend who has seen it 70 times. She hadn't seen it in this theatre, though. And this was my first time. I had wanted to see Matt Lucas, of Little Britain, in it. And I did, but I would have seen him better if I had taken my bifocals. DOH!!! I wish Holly had been here to remind me.

Anyway, it was great and I kept thinking of Jon/Balthazar whose favorite musical it is and whose judgment on musicals (and other things) I respect greatly.

I might not have forgotten the glasses but when we were at Kew Gardens earlier (photos to follow; there are none from the theatre because I'm very honest. Not counting the photos I wasn't supposed to take in the Museum of Childhood in Edinburgh. Oh, and Durham Cathedral. Jeez, now I wish I'd've sneaked one at the play. But my camera isn't stealth at all—) OH RIGHT! When we were at Kew Gardens earlier, my camera said there was no room on the disk. That should not have been right, because I had moved photos and then deleted. So I put the other disk in, and after just a few dozen photos, it said no more room. NO no NO!! I was sad.

So the short time we had at Julie's house between Kew Gardens and regrouping to go to the theatre, I worked on the camera disks and didn't calmly think "What do I need to go to a play?" I got my train pass and my oyster card and my camera (which I used to reformat both disks, on the train, and that worked) and did not think at all one bit about glasses to see actors.

Next time.
No, next time I'll forget too.

But the play was good, and I got a DVD, and I will be able to play it on the little player Schuyler found for me to take home to play my PAL (European region) DVD's on. I think it's a concert and not the production itself, but I don't care.

Kew Gardens is high on my list of things to do again and better next time I'm here.

Gratuitous photos, car repair shop, in Bushmill's, Northern Ireland.

Giant's Causeway

Today we're about to go to sand dunes. That's what people do in Northern Ireland.

Yesterday we went to the Giant's Causeway. The greatest benefit to me is that now my Apples to Apples Junior UK edition will have one card that's less baffling.



Sarah took a couple of photos of me there, climbing down a dangerous trail with the courage of a mountain goat and the fear of a wimpy me (not much fear, just, oh... trepidation; no, caution). Anyway... I'll include those later.