The Joys of Traveling and Landing into my Family's Arms..

For the first time in my ENTIRE life, I am the first one awake on Christmas morning. I have expected at least my father to meander into the living room since 7am, but still I only hear snoring. I can imagine this is due to the CHAOS of the last 40 or so hours!

Here is how it all went down:

December 23rd, 6:30am – my nice taxi driver took me to the Shodnenskaya metro. After lugging my heavy suitcase into the trunk, he asked, “Russian Vodka?” and we laughed together.

12:30pm –boarded my flight from Moscow to D.C. GOT A WINDOW seat. Stayed awake the entire time, and often caught myself smiling of pure joy, at the thought of being home, at the fun of travel, of the beautiful sun out my window…

3:00pm, D.C. time – arrival into the U.S.!! sailed my way through customs, quickly picked up a peppermint mocha from starbucks, and became quickly amazed at how FANCY and English-speaking this country is...talked to beautiful voices on my AMERICAN cell phone and became overly hyper/slap happy due to lack of sleep and sugary coffee.

7:30pm – departed across the country. Pulled down my eye-cover dealy, plugged my ears with music, and dozed off for the next 5 hours, completely missing all snack/beverage services!

10:30pm (STILL DECEMBER 23RD) –LANDED into PDX, made my way quickly off that plane, down and around, and INTO THE ARMS of: Aimee, Mother, Jeremy, Father, Micaella, and Kylie. Yes, my family managed to make a gigantic scene in the middle of that peaceful airport by screaming my name and holding up a huge sign that said in both English and Russian (go, sis!): “Welcome Home, Hezer!” we chatted and laughed and loved each other as we awaited my suitcase, then I had to part from Kylie and Micaella, who had both left half-drunk beers and pizza at a pub where they were hanging with friends. My family fought our way through the streets of Portland, looking for any food available. We found IHOP, and I consumed way too many chocolate chip pancakes plus hashbrowns and whatever else my family gave me…

1:30am – we made our way south, through lots of fog and weary eyes.

6:30am – HOME SWEET HOME.

Whew. That was one LONGGGG day! I then proceeded to sleep for 10 hours, then wake up in time to eat delicious food with my family and head out to the annual Christmas Pageant, where my pastor’s daughter starred as Joseph!!! I was so proud of her…if the men don’t step up, you’ve gotta take over! ;)

Last night, my family suggested I take something to help me sleep. I said confidently, “I don’t suffer from jet-lag!” uh-huh. Hello, 3:30am, when I lay in my bed with my eyes open, wondering what to do. Well, I’ve been awake for five hours now, hanging out with my cats and dogs, and I seriously CAN’T WAIT for someone to come play with me and drink coffee and eat something great…

MERRY CHRISTMAS, world!!

Dreams of home…

In EIGHT DAYS I will hop on a plane and get out of this freezing country, only to find my way to another freezing place. :) ha, it’s funny how that works out. However, the difference is that I will be leaving beautiful people who hardly know me and finding my way back into my intimate community of lovers. It’s a little overwhelming, because there are sooo many people back on the West Coast whom I love so much, yet the MOST IMPORTANT thing is to be with my family, who are sacrificing a real Christmas just so they can eat “saltines and mac-n-cheese with Heather”—my sister’s words…

HOWEVER. My body and soul needs to be in Seattle, for at least 48 hours or so...The plan is to work out a brilliant scheme to see as many people as possible, and still spend tons of time with my family. Hmmmmmm. It shall be great, no matter what!

Things I’m dreaming of eating (always on my thoughts…):

*note: see, I’m mostly a vegetarian, but in Russia it’s hard to be—plus, right now chicken sounds REALLY good. SO, below list is part vegetarian, part not.

• NERVOUS NELLIE’S: toast with butter, cheese, and raspberry jam and an americano
• Top pot donuts: double trouble, lemon bismark, glazed old-fashioned, maple bar, and apple fritter (hopefully all at once…)
• Americanos and Vanilla Lattes—from ANYWHERE, anytime!
• Jai thai: PHAD THAI, chicken or tufu—2 stars! (or maybe 1, because my taste buds have surely adapted to the bland food here…)
• Elliot bay: chicken Caesar sub
• Copper Barrel--vanilla bean chillers
• Thai kitchen: Crab delight
• Trophy Cupcakes—triple chocolate
• Chipotle—veggie fajita burrito with black beans and guac.
• La burrito—chicken chimichanga and all the chips and salsa in the world!
• COFFEE, all the time
• All manners of baked goods, in great quantities—cookies, cakes, brownies, pizzooki, muffins, etc.

Apples and Onions

I’m going to take a small break from my personal Office: Season 6 marathon to update you all on the last week.

Highlights:

• Celebrating Thanksgiving at work, showing the Russians how it is done (actually, I think they are far better than we are at sitting around with close friends and family and eating and drinking as much as you physically can!)
• Finding Hummus in the local седмой континент and consuming it for almost every meal for the last week
• Receiving two darling packages from Miss Aimee Sibet and Miss Marion Kessler—you better believe I rushed to apply Burt’s Bees to my lips and place brand-new bobby pins all over my hair (I have also scarfed down all signs of chocolate…)
• Receiving a “Happy Birthday” balloon from my star student with zebras and monkeys on it. She said, “I know your birthday isn’t until December 22nd, but I thought of you and had to get it!” ahhh.
• And…having a big Thanksgiving bash with all of our closest American/Russian friends here. I believe there were 17 of us, and my flatmates and I got dressed up to host. Instead of turkey we had chicken, instead of sweet potatoes we had pelmeni, and instead of wine we had vodka. GOOD TIMES.

Lowlights:

• Feeling constantly emotionally unstable for some reason or another, and realizing that most of my stability lies in my bestest friends and family who are VERY far away from me right now. booooo.