I've got Christmas songs in my head.  Mostly on repeat. I don't love this but it is what it is.  I can't ever sing enough of the 12 Days of Christmas to know how many maids are milking and how many drummers are drumming but what's a girl supposed to do after a night flight across the Atlantic Ocean with minimal sleep? Oh and the real winner over the last two days is the refrain: I'll be home for Christmas, just you wait and see.  I sing it to myself because I think in that song everything works out okay--but I am not sure because I don't actually know anything but the refrain.  Who though would write a song about going home at Christmas for the last verse to reveal that the loved one never made it home?

Well, there have been a couple times in this trip that I was sure I wasn't ever going to get close to Walla Walla.  There've been snow delays/weather whatevers and lots and lots of standing in lines.  But four airplane rides later, here I am sitting in the Seattle airport waiting for my last flight to Walla Walla.  Yep, I'll have been on 5 in planes in 24 hours shortly--I think.  I mean, I am not sure if it's really been 24 hours or if it's more than this seeing as each time I get off an airplane I am find myself gaining time--an hour or two here or there and I have no idea what time it is.  In fact, I managed to eat breakfast now fewer than three times this morning.

So, now I feel like my head is spinning and I am looking forward to finding an Americano and settling down to wait for my final plane to Walla Wall.

Before I do this however I am going to submit you to a short list of the strange things I've observed, overheard or experienced in the last 24 hours.
<ul>
	<li>The book<em> In Cold Blood</em> by Truman Capote is not a travel/read in the airport/on an airplane kind of book.  People look at your book and then look at you with confusion. I should probably tape a note under the title that says: don't worry I am not reading this for fun. It's work. I have to teach to my Bulgarian 11th graders in February.  But I am not sure this would make the situation any better. Now I just try to read it with the cover in my lap so that people can't see what I am reading.</li>
	<li>In Warsaw airport, an American man says to another man with a child: are you speaking Russian to her or Polish? (Really!? American man--think about it?!)</li>
	<li>When airplanes land successfully in Eastern Europe, Eastern Europeans clap. I find this totally disconcerting.  <!--more-->I actually expect that you will successfully land the plane. That's what I am paying you for. I don't think that I should have to clap that you actually did this.  I clap for soloists at the orchestra or theater performances but for landing an airplane? That's not my thing. But it does make you take pause and think about the Eastern European psyche.</li>
	<li>To the American guy trying to teach a Polish woman about the "10 super foods," she spent most of the conversation with a confused look on her face.  I think that she understood spinach, walnuts and blue berries but your explanation of barley stunk.  "Um... barley, you can go to the store and buy it." So that's it? That's all your giving this poor woman listening to you go on and on about super-foods?! You can buy it in the grocery store?</li>
	<li>Then there was the mom and dad sitting next to me on the trans-Atlantic flight whose baby threw-up on herself at the end of the flight. Why didn't you change her clothes. I don't want to smell anyone's vomit for the rest of the flight.  Granted you may be used to baby spit-up but this was more than just spit-up.  I am sorry that your two year old has never flown before but I think the polite thing is to change your baby's clothes so the rest of us aren't forced to smell the vomit.</li>
	<li>Oh, and at some point in here I over heard yet another American man telling a young man sitting next to him that he's going to be marrying a Ukrainian girl.  A really nice girl that he met through friends of friends. I heard him saying this and it made my skin crawl--another white man "saving" a Ukrainian girl and he was so proud of himself.  I am not sure which one was worse the pride or the bragging.</li>
	<li>For the first time ever, I sat next to a woman carrying on a dog.  The dog barking was 5 times worse than a baby crying. It was bad. I hate that I am about to write this but, here it comes, give me a crying baby any day.  Can you not live without your dog for a few days around Christmas?</li>
</ul>
All of this said, it's nice to be back in the States and so very close to home.  I am signing off now so that I can go and track down a coffee.