Longest Day Ever

This is the longest day of my life. Literally. No, like actually literally. Or maybe a bunch of the shortest days of my life...anyway...
We started off in Wisconsin, not early but it wasn't leisurely either. Then the bus to the airport in Chicago where we were to catch our first flight to shanghai. When we checked in we were informed that we were given an illegal flight through china on our way back home. Apparently you can't even have a layover in an airport for longer than 24 hours in China. The airline was nice about it and helped us in anyway they could but they told us we would have to call our booking agency because it was their fault, not the airline itself. Good thing we gave ourselves plenty of time in the airport because we needed all of that time to figure it out. I called the company that gave us our tickets and the first thing the gentleman said was that we would have to pay a change fee on top of the price for the new ticket. I was not happy with that so I inquired for another option. 30 minutes later, he said we could cancel our flights for cheaper before booking a new flight. Well, a flight back was about as much as our round trip!

So I got real with the man. I said in my nicest voice "look sir, I understand that you're trying to do everything you can for us and I appreciate it but I was sold an illegal flight without my knowledge. I feel as if we shouldn't be charged with fees for something the airline did wrong and not us." And with that the man put us on hold for another 45 minutes to call the airline directly. I had handed off the phone to ty when he came back and the airline switched our flights around so we are there under 24 hours and we got a free hotel stay for the night. Pays to be persistent and nice.

All this was done just in time. Our flight was slightly delayed and we were on the phone until boarding time. We didn't have much time to walk around and get lunch (that was rushed while one of us was on hold), and we only had a little bit of time to do other things like email friends and family and call our banks.

Right before we got up to get in line, I picked up my backpack and noticed that the bottom was soaking wet. My bladder of water must have not been closed because most of the water was in the bottom half f my backpack... I pulled out all of my things and was happy to see that nothing electronic got wet, only things that would eventually dry, but everything was drenched, completely drenched. Luckily, Ty had a small towel that I used to try to sop up some of the water before we got on to the plane, so that it didn't spread. Everything was out of my bag when they called final boarding. I gave Ty an armful of the stuff that needed to stay dry and then put everything that could get wet back into the, now less saturated, backpack.

The flight was not full but of course I got stuck in the middle seat. I had damp things hanging all over my seat in the hopes that they would dry and despite being pretty tired already, I could not find a decently comfortable sleeping position.

Good news: there was a touch screen on every seat to play games and watch movies. Ty and I watched two movies together before I started getting a headache from starring into a glowing screen. So, Ty watched two more movies while I struggled to nap, to no success. We watched the sun set, then rise as we traveled to the North Pole. Up and over the earth! So many interesting things to see from the window of a plane flying over Russia and China. Russia looks very very cold, my friends. It was a frozen tundra which looked so crazy. I don't think I've ever seen so much snow, mountains and nothing else. Flying over the Rockies comes close but it was like that but times 5. It definitely looked like what I thought the North Pole looked like. Then flying over China was strange. We watched the sun set again and then looked outside to see many large dots of light scattered across the landscape. We looked at our flight tracker that showed we were off he coast of China. Were these lights off-shore oil drills? Whatever they were were mesmerizing. After this, I was able to pass out for a few hours and I felt amazing when I woke up. It's so hard to keep track of time in my head as we are in the air half way across the world. My body is very confused...

So our plane landed and we had about an hour and a half for our next flight which we felt ok about until we saw the hoards of people and then the lines. The first line was fine, then there was another for international flights. I totally forgot that we would have to go through security again coming into China. We were doing fine until the line went trough a door to another line with only one attendant and it was going so slow. Now we were down to an hour before our flight took off. We will have enough time, I kept saying to myself, because we have a whole hour and we are halfway through this line. But then the line got held up and our time was dwindling. I was starting to get more stressed out. Finally the line moved again, a nice man let us in front of him and we got through the passport check under my designated panic time (yaknow, that time you set for yourself to actually start worrying).

So we hustled up the stairs ready to run to our gate when there is yet another line!! Security screening and baggage check. This was also only one line open and they didn't have enough plastic bins for everyone to put their things in. We had to separate even more things than in the states, if you can believe it. Finally we get up to the ramp and we try to go fast but that didn't happen, of course the metal detector goes off for ty and then they find a bunch of things that he needs to take out of his bag. He finally gets the go ahead when they pull out my bag and tell me to take things out as well! I didn't even know I had a few things in my bag so I had to dig around, losing more time. A tiny pair of scissors for a patching kit, I had to take out except when the agent saw how little and harmless hey were, he let me have them back. Sad I had to give up my lighter though... a naturalist always needs a lighter!

I've got half my bag unpacked but I tell Ty to run to the gate and I'll follow him. So I'm walking briskly through the shanghai airport carrying a handful of things and my luggage slung half hazardously off my shoulders when things just start falling out of my grasp. So I stop in the middle of the hallway to quickly put everything back together so I can start my jog walk. Obviously our gate is the last one down this ginormous hallway. I feel like that always happens to me when I have a fast transfer, especially in atl.

I'm sweating but Ty gives me a thumbs up about our flight, which means we have some sweet sweet extra time for water and bathrooms.

Right before our plane boards, my dude starts to get his symptoms of a migraine and I feel so bad knowing how much those royally suck, especially on a day like today where we have so much traveling. Currently we are almost about to land in Thailand and we both have headaches, guess the time changes and the longest day on earth has caught up on us... oh boy am I excited to take a shower and pass out for a long time.

We just got to our air b&b,showered and are ready to sleep. Our host picked us up from the airport which was so nice at such a late hour and we stopped into a 7-Eleven to get water and things. So many odd packaged foods. I recognized dried fruit and a banana lol.

I am so overdue for sleep. Good night!