The Long Flight Home

Tiny room, but nice hotel room. Someone went WILD with the color in this hotel. Nice city. Too bad we didn't get to see any of it. We woke up groggy and tired, but hopped on the shuttle bus to the airport. Man, it was nice to get rid of 3 suitcases - a bad number to pull for us.

We had to hop a tram to the correct terminal after luggage, but we arrived with enough time to relax. It was easy passing the time, as the boys loved watching the Airplanes take off through the wall-sized glass windows. We ate some weird food for breakfast. I had some greasy noodles (I was warned it was too spicy) and Mason had smoked salmon wraps. Sounded good, but it was neither smoked nor cooked. He got most of the way through before he said he didn't like it. I tried it and agreed. He ordered "fresh apple juice" and for once we got what we asked for: apple pulp, apple froth and a straw. He did his best to drink it. The receipt was really cool. The total came to close to about 320 Hong Kong dollars, but also had 12 different denomination amounts at the bottom. For USD, it was $46. For Japan, about $3000+ yen. When I paid, the cashier had over 4 cash registers open (that I could see).



The plane seats were 3-4-3, with two aisles. Our family took all 4 in the middle, towards the back. The first couple of hours was great - all three were sleeping. I think I ended up eating everyone's supper. Or eating one, and holding two while they slept. It was very cramped.

Then that ended, and the rest of the 11 hours was a nightmare. Poor Weston kicked and screamed at least half the flight. We were surrounded by "experts" the whole way. Baby is hot. Baby is cold. Baby is hungry. Feed the baby. Give baby milk. Give the baby water. Even one lady tried to tell me something but could not hear her. She kept rubbing her face as if I was suppose to massage Weston's face. I remember at the 5 hour mark, after a particularly long bout of crying, a man in the back of the plane started shouting at us to SHUTUP, and something about trying to sleep. At about 6 hours left to go, Mason lost it and started crying that he couldn't do any more minutes, he wanted to be there NOW. After that, Mason fell asleep, but only by sleeping crosswise on two seats, basically pinning me in. I know Heather was on her own for quite a while with Weston from then on in. I slept for about 2 hours. At the 4 hour-hours-to-go mark, Heather spilled the rest of the baby formula on the floor as she tried to make another bottle. The formula was the only thing that occasionally worked on Weston, too!

I asked the stewardess for some milk, and that worked one time for Weston, buying us another hour. Then a very long bout of crying until he finally took some water. After falling asleep to that, he and Mason woke up with about 1 hour left to go, and they acted like it was 'morning'... bright and cheery.

Immigration / Customs in Chicago was interesting again. Last time it was Mason who wanted to go to the bathroom, but we couldn't get out of line to make our connecting flight. This time it was 3 bags of luggage, 4 backpacks on me, and Weston got a bloody nose. Security took a solid 40 minutes of shuffling. Some pretty peeved people, too! If they thought that was bad, they should try 14 hours on a plane with a crying baby!

Eventually we got to a tiny gate that said Madison, and we sat with some cheeseheads and Badger fans once again. The puddle jump back to Madison was a world record for speed.
Back at Madison, I walked to the Economy lot (three states away) and drove it up to the terminal to pick up 3 tired travelers. Weston took the car seat amazingly well, and I tried to keep the car on the road all the way home. We stopped at Culver's drivethru for supper, and Mason & Weston ate all my fish.