Yes! We are now in the U.S.!

S and I safely arrived at my parents' house in Illinois on Wednesday afternoon. We had a somewhat interesting trip from Chennai.

We arrived at the Chennai airport on Tuesday night to a traffic jam. The international part of the airport is very small and fairly easy to navigate. Normally it only takes around 30 seconds from the time you turn off of the road until reach the front door. Well on Tuesday night, it took about 20 to 30 minutes. At first, our driver thought they were doing bomb checks, which made logically sense since there have been some bombings in the northern parts of India. Well come to find out, this wasn't the case. All traffic was being routed through the crowded parking lot since the main road right next to the terminal was full of people...all Muslims. What was going on with all of the people???

Well we finally figured out that some of the Muslims were going to Jeddah. Jeddah is in Saudi Arabia and is the gateway to Mecca, which is Islam's holiest city. Muslims are required to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime. So, the only logical conclusion we could draw from all of the people was that there was a group of Muslims from Chennai making this pilgrimage and that since this is such a big occasion in their lives that all of their families and friends turn out to see them off. This equates to a big mess at the airport for us!

Anyway, we had a good flight to Frankfurt, Germany. The second strange thing happened to us as we were getting off of the plane. There were about 5 policeman checking passports of all of the passengers. For those of you who have never traveled internationally, this is not the norm. Well when we got to them and they saw our U.S. passports, they just waved us by. Obviously they must have been looking for someone in particular. We didn't stick around to see what happened.

After that, we had to switch terminals to catch our connecting flight to Chicago. Well for some reason, this lady...who didn't speak one word of English and who we are pretty sure had never flown before...latched on to me as she was completely confused and lost to what to do. She was headed to Los Angeles, and we finally got her through security and to her gate. We are pretty sure she spoke Russian or something like that. I guess I just wanted to help her because if my parents were in the same situation, I would hope someone would help them out as well.

We were a little concerned that our flight from Frankfurt to Chicago would be delayed due to a snow storm in Chicago. However, we ended up leaving on time and actually arriving early to Chicago. Luckily my parents had been checking our flight status on the internet and saw that we were due to arrive early, so they had left early to come get us. We were welcomed to Chicago by cold weather and snow on the ground. Definitely a change from warm Chennai.

Overall, the trip from our house to my parents' house was long, but not near as bad as what I expected. Have the flight broken up into two equal segments of 9 hours each is definitely better than the direct 13 1/2 hour flight between Beijing and Chicago.

My brother greeted me at my parents' house by throwing a snowball at me in the house and saying "Welcome to Illinois." Don't worry...he has a payback coming.

We went and got our first rabies shot on Wednesday night. No foaming at the mouth, chasing cars, or drinking out of toilets...yet!

Jet lag has been much easier this trip than when we traveled between China and the U.S. Wednesday night, we went to bed at about 7:30. I woke up at 1:30 in the morning, but stayed in bed and managed to fall back to sleep from about 4 to 6. S woke up at about 2:30 and stayed up all day...this is actually not that different than what he normally does, so he was OK later in the day. Last night, we went to bed at about 9:15, and I woke up at a little after 4 this morning. I would have preferred another hour or two of sleep, but compared with waking up at 1 or 2 in the morning for numerous nights coming from Beijing, I'll take sleeping until 4. Plus getting up at 4, when S is still sleeping, has the advantage that I actually can use the internet. My parents' only have dial up internet. Luckily, they have two phone lines as S pretty much has the one line tied up the entire time we are here as he dials in to do work on his computer. I have to beg him to log off so I can use the internet. Since the other phone line is for my parents' business, we can't use it for the internet.

Yesterday, we stopped in to see my grandparents. Then we went to S's parents' house. It was S's mom's birthday, so we took her, his step-father, and his aunt out for lunch.

Today, I have to go get my hair done. I have this thing with not letting anyone in China or India touch my hair. I have heard of too many bad experiences...such as D who had like 12 people watch her get her hair cut in Sri Lanka and L who had a 4 hour hair cut in Chennai. No thank you...I'll just wait until I'm in the U.S.

After I'm done with that, S and I are planning to head out to start some shopping and then we have a Christmas party tonight. This weekend brings another Christmas party, a nephew's wrestling tournament, and another nephew's band concert...oh and of course, more shopping!

So, anyway, it feels good to be back in IL...even if it is the middle of winter here. We lucked out last year by not having any bad weather the entire time we were here. This year, we aren't going to be as lucky, but that's OK as I have missed the snow. The cold weather...now that's a different story...but I guess I can't have the snow without the cold weather. Plus I can survive for 3 weeks until I go back to sunny, warm Chennai!