"mr. jetlag wants to be my best friend"

Some Gilmore girl humor for you.

I know, I'm sorry that I've been M.I.A! This week I have done nothing else but unpacking, catching up on laundry and trying to stay out of the snow. (through record-breaking amounts...more on that later)

It's been a trip of a lifetime and I'll take you day by day on my China trip with me...starting with the first day of our travels:

Ryan and I had tickets on United for Economy class. Not looking forward to our 14 hour flight from San Fran to Shanghai, we dreaded this flight! (this was after our horrible flight from Boise to San Fran and stupid United being stupid) Our layover wasn't all that long, so we just hung out until the plane boarded.

The nice ticket lady at the counter approached us and asked us if we wouldn't mind moving to the exit row, because they needed to make sure that they had English-speaking people to help in case of an emergency. We said that we didn't mind, and she took our tickets.

15 minutes later, she returned them with a smile and said, "Enjoy your flight!" and we didn't notice until later that our tickets were now gold and had BUSINESS CLASS written at the top. Huh. What in the world?!

We boarded and went to our seats...sure enough. We were upgraded just like that. I can't even tell you how exciting this was, to have $5,000 seats for free!! The food was incredible, seriously rivaled a steakhouse or upscale restaurant. We had to turn away food because we were so full! Our seats could FULLY RECLINE, we had our own personal t.v. with cable t.v. and movies, all the drinks we wanted, our own bathroom, no kids so it was perfectly quiet and wonderful. It was amazing. Enough legroom for us to get up and dance..
It was heaven for 14 hours. HEAVEN! I honestly can't express through words how it felt. We were giddy! Absolutely giddy. We got to eat off of glass plates and dishes and we had personal tablecloths that were made out of satin! It was amazing
After our exhausting flight (it was nice, but it was still a long day) we arrived at the Shanghai International Airport. Everywhere we went we stood in lines. More and more lines. Customs, security, passport stuff, waiting for luggage, etc. A couple hours later, we were through! We made it to China. So surreal. I round the corner and see a guy in a Santa outfit. I just KNEW it was my Dad!

Sure enough, turned out to be him! Meeting us there was my Mom, brother Aaron and Santa my Dad. It was so fun to see some familiar faces at the end of a long long day. But it wasn't over yet! My sister, Aimee, was actually flying in also. We waited at the airport for another few hours until Aimee's flight and then we all went back to my parent's apartment.

As much as we tried, we only slept a little on the plane. This was what we looked like after our flight...sexy! I had only gotten an hour's rest before we'd left Boise because of our bags were too heavy and they all needed repacking. (see Mom's blog about what we stuffed our suitcases with)

Try to figure this out: We left the morning of December 22nd and arrived in Shanghai, China the evening of December 23rd. Hmmmm.....

And so it begins!