I woke up this morning still in Sofia. My suitcase is packed, my Christmas gifts are purchased, my fridge is empty but last night my flight from Sofia to Frankfurt was canceled. And for the first time ever after two and a half years in Sofia, I thought: I don't want to be here.

It all started last night when I saw the cancellation on the Sofia airport website, I called Lufthansa. Sure enough, canceled.  The worst part? No flights from Sofia to Seattle until December 26th.  Yep, that's three days from now and <em>after</em> Christmas. No <em>I'll be home for Christmas</em> for me this year.

I thought: I'd better call my MoM. (Thanks Skype for such inexpensive calls to landlines from Bulgaria.)  I called home first thinking my MoM would be there. Nope my sister Charlotte. I burst into tears. Charlotte got off the phone fast after telling me MoM was at the Antique store with dAd. I called there and dAd assumed that I was Charlotte when I asked to speak to MoM. More crying. MoM assures me that it's going to be okay but at this point, it doesn't feel like it.

But getting to Seattle is only half of the battle. From Seattle I have a flight on a local Pacific Northwest carrier Horizon Air.  I now have to change this flight as well. I call there and have to go through my entire reservation with a computer before speaking to an agent. Computer says: what is your reservation number. I say it. And so on and so on. The last thing I have to do before speaking with an agent is confirm my last name which is Emigh but pronounced "Amy."  The computer refuses recognize any one of the bizarre pronunciations I attempt: Emig, Emich, Emi. So I<em> yell</em> at the computer.<!--more--> Finally I got to a human.  Then I got to pay a change fee and the difference for a new ticket. Oh well.

After this I called my MoM back, cried a little more, and she tells me that she's thinking about changing Christmas to another day.  She's going to call some relatives and see what she can do. Interesting.

We hang up and I cry a little more. It's only 10pm so I figure that I'll watch some tv, drink a glass of wine and go to bed. Instead, I have two sips of wine, fall asleep on the couch and climb into bed at 11:30 pm.

I woke up this morning at 6:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep. I am a teacher after all.  I climbed out of bed, checked my email and cried a little more while reading email notifications of my canceled flights and a new string of emails about my upcoming flights on the 26th.  Then I read an email from my dAd.
<blockquote>Your MoM has officially changed the Emigh family Christmas to December 30th.  Nick and Kellie will return to Pasco on December 29th at 11 PM – Nick has to work on the 30th.  Jane and Floyd may be earlier but will be here on the 30th for sure.  We don’t have all of the plans exactly but it seems like we will have clam chowder on the 30th.</blockquote>
How lucky am I? And yes, I cried some more when I read this email. What a nice thing to do. It made we want to be home all the more.

But really, Christmas on the 30th and New Years on the 31!?! My MoM is pretty great. It's also pretty nice that I'll be able to celebrate Christmas with my bother and his girlfriend as they are currently in Omaha celebrating actual Christmas with her family this year.

Now the only question is what I am I going to do with all of this new found free time?