Home at last

We finally made it back to Cambridge! It feels good to be back in our own bed in our own place. And I must say, catching the return flight from North Carolina instead of from Dallas made a huge difference. Not only were we adjusted to eastern time, so that we will only be jet-lagged 5 hours instead of 6, but we also were happy to find that the flight from Raleigh-Durham to London is nearly 3 hours quicker than the one from Dallas! And believe me, it’s those last three hours that really bring you to brink of despair at the end of your poor, pitiful rope. In fact, I think one of the announcements went something like this: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting our initial descent into London Heathrow, we ask that you return your seats to their upright and most uncomfortable position and turn off anything that is fun at this time, so that this last 30 minutes will creep by as slowly as possible.” Just to spite them, I decided I wouldn’t turn my phone off. I know, I’m a wild man, a rebel, a maverick :).

Also, some of you may remember that on our last trip to the US, I feigned an intense fear of exit doors so that we could switch to seats that reclined. Well, this time, I tried to repeat my heroics :). There were three seats in the middle aisle next to us, and only one of them was occupied, so the logic is that if that guy will switch with us, then he can have our two seats and we can have the three, giving Candice more room to lie down. I could tell he was the kind of guy who needed to feel free to choose whatever he wanted, so I didn’t pressure him. I was very kind and told him that if he was happy with his seats, that he didn’t need to switch with us. Sure enough, he said no. I was a little bummed, thinking that maybe I should’ve pressed him a little harder. Then, after a few minutes to think it over, the remorse was too much for him… he changed his mind and switched! Score! We were pretty happy, sitting together, just us, team Bullard on the way home, crying our eyes out while watching the in-flight movie, “The Blind Side.” Our general mood was also helped greatly by the fact that we had in our possession two cinnamon crunch bagels from Panera, which we were very much looking forward to at breakfast :).

And, finally, back to 1 Selwyn Gardens with Thanksgiving to look forward to tomorrow. I picked up our fresh from the farm, 15-pound turkey from the butcher this afternoon: let’s do this.