Half a World Away

I knew when we moved to Russia that we would be far away from family and friends. The literal truth of half a world away never hit me until I needed to get home in a hurry. Late last month I got a call from my mom and we needed to get home quick. Well, the call came on a Friday, which meant the soonest we could really get a flight home was Tuesday. With the realities of time zones and international flights, that put us in Salt Lake City on Wednesday at midnight.

Our driver showed up at 6:00 in the morning and our flight left at 3:00pm. The seven hours to Moscow were pretty stressful and involved our driver driving on the shoulder of the highway around traffic stopped for road construction. We made it to the airport, got in the wrong line, found the right line, found our gate, found food, and in a hectic mad rush got on the plane only to realize we had two tickets, not three.  That poor flight attendant probably thought I was a crazy lady as I stood there with a baby and a car seat and no place to put them. Luckily the flight wasn’t full so we got a row of four seats to ourselves.

In New York we had to get our baggage and take it through customs and re-check it. Got in the wrong line again. Found the right line, found the bathroom, found the right terminal. At this point Dave and I have come to an impasse. I am sure that it is morning and Dave is pretty sure that it is evening. So, we ask the next person we see for the time. He kindly informs us that it is 6:20, and I say, “In the morning?” and he looks at me like I’m a nut and says, “No, in the evening.” I guess I’m no good at time travel. Dave was momentarily gleeful until we realized that we only had an hour to get through security and get to our gate. Yikes.

We made it to Salt Lake City and AJ promptly got the stomach flu followed very closely by Dave getting the stomach flu. I’ve never been puked on so much in my life.

It was a short two weeks in the states and then we were headed home again. We flew on a different airline this time and they did not let me bring the car seat on board since we still only had two tickets. That was a long eleven hours. I know a lot of moms are okay holding their babies on long flights, but my wiggle worm was not too happy. When we made it to Moscow we got in the wrong line again. This time though it was a Russian line which is very different from an American line and involves pushing and cutting and yelling. Made it through that line and our driver was late so we had to wait two hours in the airport for him to show up.

The time change has been pretty rough on all of us, and the last three nights have involved midnight mommy and AJ parties. I’m pretty well partied out.