Europe

The alarm rang at 5:50 am ...of course, I didn't actually get out of bed till 6:15 am . After some final clean-up and packing the car, we were on the road by 7 am - sleepy and nervous. Every sentence starts up with, "This time tomorrow we'll be..." The official trip CD turned out to have some good sing-a-longs, but we never made it to "born to be wild". The drive was harrowing (lots of crazy truckers), but we made it. I don't think Yianni really believed me when I said I had no idea how to get to the airport, but even the online directions said "Follow Signs to the Terminal." After driving around extended parking for days, we parked in 18D (yes, this is so I can remember where my car is in 14 days). The bus was nice, but I almost fell getting on it. The first step is like two feet in the air, and for a five-foot person, that's a big first step. Anyway, we got checked in, printed boarding passes, got raped on exchanging to euros, and snuck through security by 12:30 pm . We didn't even have to take off our shoes! We explored every concourse. We were too nervous for the massage, but the peach daiquiris, mudslides, and Sam Adams summer ales helped take the edge off. While I tried to put the edge back on by scaring Yianni with plane crash jokes.

We went to gate D-80 around 2:30 . We both ran (literally) to the bathroom because we were so afraid they would board the plane without us. Eventually, we got ourselves and our bags on the plane. Although every seat was filled, we managed to beat everyone up and get our bags into the bin right above our seats. Take off was fine, but I kept getting sick every time I looked in the plane. Then I got out my laptop to type this, and everything was fine. We took about 500 pictures of clouds, cloud shelves, farm lands, mountains, and more clouds. Our pilot got lost over Atlanta and circled the bajillion suburbs for a while, before running out of fuel, and crash landing us on the interstate. Just kidding, we landed without incident. I get sick if I look anywhere but the window, and Yianni gets sick when he looks anywhere but the flotation device sticker (see picture).

Going on the recommendation from my mother that the Atlanta airport is simple and fun, we held off on eating till we arrived here. Unfortunately, my mother had never spent three hours bumming around the airport and was dead wrong. It was crowded, hot, and there was no map of the place. When we finally found an information kiosk, the girl told us they had no maps as the airport was undergoing renovations; then she handed us an airport magazine, complete with concourse map! We made it to our gate, but realized they had no actual food there, so we rode the subway back to gate C. We found Paschal’s which apparently is a Georgian tradition. They had spinach dip on the menu, so I was all for it. Of course, they were out of spinach and chips. So we ate chicken sandwiches. They were okay, but sub-par for a “Georgian tradition.” Then we wandered back to gate E and trekked the four and half miles to gate 2. With two hours till boarding, we settled in to upload pictures and rest. Then, they changed our departure gate. And do you think they changed it to gate 3? No, of course they didn’t. They changed it to gate 34…at the complete opposite end of the gate. And take note, none of the sidewalks in Atlanta move. We finally boarded the plane (along with two infants, ugh!!). Stupidly, they gave us pillows, so Yianni and I started a pillow fight. They also fed us, gave us drinks, and breakfast. Although they had to wake us up for dinner.