World Travelers

We did it! We circumnavigated the globe in just 30 days for a grand total of 25,267 miles in approximately 55 hours of flying time. We visited 3 continents and saw lots of family and friends (but still ran out of time before we could catch up with everyone, of course) and ate our fair share in each place. While it was so wonderful to be home, it's good to be back in our own home. (I find myself using the term "home" for both places) It's nice to unpack and put the suitcases away for a while. It's great to sleep in our own beds again. But it sure is quiet here. And we're all fighting the jetlag of a 14-hour time difference...Alex has been up for the day at 3:30 on the dot the past three mornings. Hopefully we'll all get caught up on our sleep and on the right side of the clock again soon.

We brought back exactly 400lbs of checked baggage, which was our limit on Singapore airlines coming from the US. What I didn't realize as I was carefully stuffing and weighing our bags is that the weight limit is 175lbs from Singapore to other countries. Since we collected all our bags there and spent a wonderful day and night with friends there, we had to check in again the next day with all 8 enormous bags. The agent calculated the excess baggage fee and told us it would be S$2,400. What?!? After a little sweating and some polite negotiations, his manager agreed that it was an extension of our US trip and allowed it through for free. Whew!! I did a year's worth of shopping for clothes, shoes, and rotel and wasn't about to leave it in Singapore. In case you're wondering what that kind of mess looks like, this should give you an idea:
It took two days but I've finally gotten control of the chaos and I think the house is back in order. Now I'll spend some time this week catching up on the blog so you can see how much we enjoyed our crazy trip around the globe.