Gallavanting and Homecomings

I left this fine conitinent that I live on and went to another. I left a couple of weeks ago for Germany and England, to go to some meetings and a conference and see some friends. It was good. That's really all I have to say about it. I met some really fantastic people and saw some neat places, but am I so incredibly happy to be home.

You know the saying, "Home is where the heart is"? Well I think it's true. My heart was in Germany and the UK for a bit, and I remember when it was in Portugal and Spain. Near the end of my trip, my heart was at home and I wasn't there, so I was left longing for home. When I say home I don't necessarily mean home the geograpic location, (but that is part of it), I mean the people you love and connect with...they are what makes up home for me. As an example, I consider myself to have 2 homes. Where I grew up is where all of my family and old friends lives and that's what I call "home home". Calgary, where I live now is "home" and here lives my newer friends and the girls that I've adopted as sisters. The last time I travelled, I was with two of my adopted sisters and so home was partly wherever we happened to be at the time. I did miss the rest of home, but I could handle being away from it for longer because of the part of home that was with me. Are you following my drift here?

Anyways...I was extremely excited the day I was to catch my plane and come home. Of course as Murphy's Law exists and comes alive during just such a time, it would have me miss my flight home so I had to endure another 24 hours apart from my beloved home. Yes, I missed my flight and I did in fact feel like I was in a movie and it wasn't really happening to me. It turned out that is was real life however, and I found myself facing many long hours in which to occupy myself until my replacement flight took my home. Well at least it took me close to home. It took me to Edmonton then I had a 3 hour drive until I hit home. I would have hated to be the guy in the movie, "The Terminal". I found that airports are incredibly noisy in the wee hours of the morn when you'd think it might be a tad peaceful. I would have gone and slept in the chapel if they would have let me, but they said they didn't encourage it and apparently a nice officer strolled through periodically through the night. Well thank goodness for comfy Starbucks chairs. All you have to do is push two of them together and voila!...you have a makeshift bed.

I thought periodically throughout my unexpected extra day in England, "I'm too old for this shit." Meaning I should just fork over the money and get a hotel, but instead I resorted to flawed logic. If I just stayed in the airport for the night, not only could I be sure that I wouldn't miss another plane, I would be sooo stinkin' tired that I would be able to sleep on the plane ride home. I had tried taking gravol to sleep on the way to England but it had no effect. And if staying up for a bazillion hours didn't work, I could still try gravol again and if that didn't work, there was always the nice little bottle of alcohol that I bought.

I didn't sleep one lick of sleep. I tried all of the above and I have come to the conclusion that my body simply rejects airplane sleep. Next time I am going to take whatever cold medication my friend Daniel took when he conked out in his bathroom while shaving only to wake up later asleep on his bathroom floor and the batteries in his shaver were dead. Give me some of that!!

So HOME!!! I am home and I am loving it!! It has been snaining (snowing/raining) today and I don't even care!! I am just absolutely delighted to be home. Thank you God for getting me home.