A long time ago, in a land far, far away...

When I last left you, dear readers, I was stuck in a foreign land, short on both sleep and food.  Fortunately, I made some friends during my months in Milan.  So, after a kind roommate made me some homemade Chinese food common in her hometown and then I slept for 14 hours, I headed to downtown Milan to spend the day with a friend.  She bought me lunch and we hit up all 8 levels of Italy's posh most famous department store.  Fun day.

Early the next morning--EARLY the next morning--I hopped on a bus, got to the metro, and waited for the first train.  From the central station, I caught the bus to the airport, whipped through security, and got on the plane to Dusseldorf, Germany.  Oh!  My bag was a couple kilograms overweight, which was definitely a potential problem.  The airline charged 10 euro for every kilo over the limit, but I had a woman checking me in who was either kind or lazy and she just let my bag slide on through.  Woohoo!

Onto Dusseldorf, which looked like a snowy winter wonderland as we landed.  A quick pass through the passport check desk, and I was at the gate.  My plane was a bit delayed because the pilot wanted to wait for  a couple late planes coming in with a bunch of people transferring flights.  We made up the time during the thousands of miles to Chicago, during which time I slept some blissful albeit leg-asleepy hours and watched the movie "Salt."  There's nothing like a fast-moving action movie on a nice 5 x 6 inch screen. Oh, yeah.  I also watched "Despicable Me," which I loved!  A nice animated movie, plus my natural high level of emotion, temporarily enhanced by the anticipation of finally getting home, all adds up to me tearing up in either sadness or joy at least four times during the movie.

I left Milan in the morning, I saw Dusseldorf in the late morning, and I landed in Chicago in the early afternoon.  Not too bad, right?  It was the longest day of my life.  Not in a bad way, just in a really literal way.  It was 33 hours, to be exact.  Beat that!