July 25th, 2006

Well, that was a very long trip. Let me tell you ALL about it!

We left Izumo bright and early on Sunday morning at 8:22. We rode the trains like normal and pulled into Narita at 4:30. Lots of train riding. I was ready to be done. We were also really really hungry because we missed lunch because we didn't pause between trains to eat. They have cart girls, but the obento (box lunch) girl only passed by once and we weren't quite ready for her. So we quickly checked into our NICE hotel and then left to get some food. Unfortunatley we couldn't find many restuarants, so we just went to a chain that we knew was good from Izumo. Yum! But we were hungry enough that we inhaled our food. Then we went back and went to bed early.

Our hotel was really nice. Some how we got a great deal on the room from some online company. We had to take a cab from the airport (which cost 1700 yen! for just 10 minutes!). When we pulled up to the front, a bellboy came out and took our luggage from us and told us that he would bring us to our room. The lobby was beautiful. The room was a normal Japanese sized hotel room. Two twin beds, the weird hotel style bathroom, and a small table with two chairs. We didn't really care though, doing the trains was kinda tiring. They did have a complimentary shuttle from the hotel to the airport and one to downtown. So that was cool. We definitely didn't want to take the cab again. That was way too expensive. We had no idea.

The next day (monday), we got up at 8:00 and went to the airport as early as we could. Unfortunately, the Delta check-in desk didn't open until 12:15 and we got there at 10:30. That was kinda poopy. So we just got some breakfast and waited around until they let us in. We then sat at the airport until 2:45 when they let us board the airplane. We did a lot of sitting yesterday.

The plane ride wasn't so bad. It was just 12 hours (11 hours and 41 minutes to be exact) and its never fun to be stuck on a plane for that long. They did give us four different movies. I watched Ice Age: Meltdown, Annapolis, The Benchwarmers, and 8 Below. Most of the movies were good. Annapolis was terribly boring and I kinda had a headache through it. Chris didn't watch and just napped on me while it was on. He wasn't even watching and it bored him so much. Im sure it wasn't as bad as it was for me, but when you are stuck on a plane, you need adventurous movies. 8 Below was this movie about dogs getting abandoned in Antartica. Very sad stuff. Chris had to give me his tissue because I kept crying.

The food was decent. We had Dinner, Breakfast, and Lunch. IT was in that order to mimic Atlanta time. Dinner was wonderful. We had pasta in a cheese and spinach sauce. I inhaled that. I was really hungry by the time they handed it out. They also gave us Soba with wasabi mayonaise and sauce. It was too salty for me, so I let Chris eat mine (which was weird because he didn't eat his). He also ate my salad which was too vinegary (although he ate his as well). We also had a little loaf of bread and a pastry. Breakfast was just a snack-type meal. There was a unfresh apple danish, blueberry yogurt, pepper cream cheese and crackers. That wasn't so great. The lunch was something. I don't know what, you will have to ask Chris. I started feeling really really crappy when they handed out lunch so I couldn't even look at mine. Ick. It sucked too, because we were the last people on the plane to get food. Somehow, they missed us when they handed out all the trays. That meant the good meal was gone so we had to have chicken. Didn't matter for me, but Chris had to suffer through poopy chicken and rice.

We landed at the airport at 2:30 eastern standard time. It was 3:30 am for our time zone though. We were really tired. We had to go through billions of lines to get through customs though. Took forever! It took us an hour and a half to get through all the line and the waiting. I wasn't expecting that. It took me 15 minutes to get through customs and to the trains when I came to Narita. It's annoying how long it takes in America. I realize that everyone is still scared or something, but boo! When you are tired, thirsty, and hungry, nobody wants to spend that long standing in lines with other cranky people!

Laura and her new squeeze, JT, picked us up at the airport. She then took us to Taco Bell (yum!) and back to her apartment. Casey was there! Unfortunately, I think I smell funny he didn't recognize me at all! I think he recognized Chris though. Bah. It was just nice to see him and to eat. I don't remember much about the trip to Athens. I know Laura chatted some but I dozed off a couple of times. I was just so tired! It was about 5:00 when we were heading back (6:00 am our time) so we were so pooped. We had been up for 22 hours by then.

We got to Athens at around 6:00. JAne and Randy showed us around their house but instead of going to dinner, we just zonked out in bed. Lying down was heavenly. They also have really really wonderful pillows. Chris and I are already plotting to steal them! Not really. But its nice to dream. Japanese pillows have buckwheat in the bottom and are thicker and not squishy. I hadn't realized how much I missed not-Japanese pillows. We both woke up at 4:00 and were ready to start the day. Unfortunatley, it was 4:00 am. So we forced ourselves back to sleep until 7:00. Then! Up! We were ready by then.

Good thing, too. Jane and Randy just moved into a new house, however, it still isn't quite finished so the minute after I woke up, the hammering started. Good timing on our part. We went to Burger King for breakfast. It was lovely.

Now, its only 11:00 am and Im about ready to go back to bed. Jet lag is not being kind to me! Oh well. Chris seems much better off. Oh well. Anyways, so thats that! I will try to keep updated about the trip so I don't have to do a huge one at the end.

See you all soon!