The Journey Home

As always, the trip back to Cairo sucked big time. The short leg, the long leg and the medium leg. There are many things that could have been worse, but it was pretty grueling. Jacqueline only slept for about 45 minutes on the overseas leg (8 hours long), and slept most of the Frankfurt to Cairo leg. She was pretty sleep deprived. Grant, I think, pulled off the highlight of the trip, though. When we were in the Chicago O'Hare airport, he opened the door to the automatic defibrillator station and set off a the alarm. We were sitting on the floor against the wall (no seats to sit on) and I heard this alarm go off. I wondered where it was coming from and Grant came running around the corner (we were on the corner) with his hands over his ears saying, "Sorry sorry sorry". I walked around the corner and closed the door and the alarm went off a minute later. And really, when you think about it, how is a blaring alarm going to help a heart attack situation? Still, this rude guy (NOT an airport official) got in my face and said , "You know that the fire department is going to come? You're in trouble!" I told him to eat rocks and packed things up and went over to the airline desk and told them what my son did. She said, "So what! Would you like to pre-board?" Would I, would I? (peg leg peg leg) We were the first ones on the plane. Which is a toss up in my opinion. I'd either be first or last. The kids can't stand waiting in line but then you are on the plane for a longer period of time before take off. I just got on. By the time I get the kids settled, etc. most everyone has boarded and we don't have much time before take-off.

Eliza and Mairyn were pretty low maintenance, as usual. They both saw friends of theirs from school in the Frankfurt airport. They were on the same flight as us and played together until it was time to board for Cairo. Oh yeah, and the airline bent my stroller up. I had a whole other issue with that, but really, a long story short, it was quite long and awful and I'm glad that I'm not doing it again for a long, long time. Next summer, when we leave Cairo, Spencer is leaving with me and that's all that matters!