Chasing the Sun

I must find out how many miles I traveled in this last 24-hour period! Four airports and three flights and I chased the sun about halfway around the world! Wanting to be sure I had no problems getting out of Croatia, I got up at 5:00 AM and caught a 6:30 taxi to the airport for a 9:00 AM flight. I did have to pay some additional taxes and fees on my plane ticket, about $40, I think, but still had an hour and a half to hang out at the airport. Once I got to Franfurt, Germany, though (at 11:30 AM), it was rush, rush, rush! I had to find the International flights gates, go through a long line of security and get to the gate desk to get my boarding pass issued! No time to go to the Duty Free shops for Euopean chocolates : (

Once I was in the air, I changed my watch back six hours to Wash. DC time, so now I was back to 7:00 AM that same morning again! The flight was long, watched a movie & slept some. There was quite a cross section of people, Germans, Americans and Indians. Several of the Indians were a great nuisance to the flight staff, constantly up out of their seat, moving about, asking for this and that. They also congregated in the rear of the craft & talked, I was a bit worried about what they were up to. But, made it safely to Wash DC at about 3:30 PM.

I had two hours to get through passport control, customs, etc. before the flight to Seattle. Passport was easy, the agent just had to scan my card through the machine. All the passport stations were equipped with videos trained right on the person as well as fingertip scanners. I think all the foreigners entering the country had to scan their fingertips into the computer system.

Now, getting through customs was another story, because a beagle dog sniffed out my Croatian pear I had in my carry-on! The agent asked me to step on the other side of the guide rail and asked me if I was carrying any fruit : 0 He was very nice about it, chatted with me about how the SuperBowl was stolen from the Seahawks, but that the Steelers, in his view, were the better team anyway. I said I'd agree since I did want to get on that flight to Seattle ; )

So, once they confiscated my pear, I rechecked my bags and headed for the last flight. Once in the air, I changed my watch back again three hours, so now it was 3:00 PM again!! I read some, slept some and talked some with the person next to me who was returning from a cruise from Vienna up the Danube to the Rhine and then down the Rhine. He and his wife had a wonderful time & liked just leaving their bags on the boat & seeing so much of the country from the rivers.

About 8:15 PM Seattle-time, we landed and I finally got to see the sun set on this 24-hour flight following the sun across the sky. In Croatia it would have been 5:00 AM in the morning!! I dropped off Mom & Dad at Denny's (they're flying to Alaska first thing in the morning) drove to Matt's place (he had dinner and a couch for me to sleep on) and fell asleep!