well, i shall be using this journal for now to put up the log of my experiences traveling for three weeks or so in europe. if you are wondering about the dates, this is why they are so. ...it bothers me that my typing has decayed slightly so that if I am not watching the screen half of my words end up very misspelled. _______________________________ July 28th/29th. Today has been the strangest day! I spent the earliest hours of the morning talking online to the friends of mine that stay up late, leaving when it seemed as though i was on good terms with everyone. I wrote a diary entry but I was very tired and cannot remember exactly what I said, although I can guess it was probably some sort of exhausted goodbye. I could not fall asleep because I was anticipating the trip so much, so I got together things to pack into a suitcase and a backpack when I woke up, then went to bed. I woke up early with five or six hours of sleep and dragged myself out of bed because I knew I couldn't waste much time. It seemed so much like any ordinary day! I took a shower and threw some things into a suitcase, because I know I got everything together last night. My backpack is dreadfully heavy because of so many books! I had The Odyssey, two library books, Red Dragon, Hannibal, The Talisman, Jaws, Insomnia, and there may be more but I am not sure because I can't remember. Things seem to have reached a strange climax in St Louis, so many things happening on the night before I left! After packing I called Dairy Queen to tell them that I was definitely still interested in working there but that I was leaving for Europe. They told me to call them when I got back. We hired a woman who does oddjobs to drive us and our luggage to the airport, because we did not want our car to sit in the airport for so long. She takes us to the airport for every vacation, usually. We boarded the plane to Chicago. The flight turned out to be only forty or so minutes long, and it seemed shorter by the time the flight attendants go through all of the safety things. There were only 15 minutes or so between landing and takeoff when people were allowed to go to the bathroom. There was a two hour layover in Chicago when we had expensive airport McDonalds and sat around boredly. It is amazing to be in a building with thousands upon thousands of people that you do not know and will never see again. It feels so low to not notice the hundreds of people walking past you because they are insignificant to your life and you may never talk to them, to watch them flow by like an expressionless river, speaking in different dialects and languages. And what if I do happen to meet one person in that crowd, how strange it would be that we had passed each other by and had no idea. They have the funniest toilets in the Chicago bathrooms, I have never seen anything like it before. The toilets have thin plastic covers that rotate after you use the toilet, and the one that goes in goes in the trash and is never used again, while a new one comes out to cover the seat. I wonder, do all public buildings have these now, and I just haven't been out of my house enough lately? We finally boarded the flight to Frankfurt (Which is where I am sitting right now, cramped, not able to move my legs, and trying hard not to notice the incredibly hot German teenage guy sitting across the aisle from me.) There is no time, at home it is late at night and I wonder if my friends are online and what they are doing, and it is early morning here over the ocean. I am so freakin tired! We are in the back part of the plane, near the engines + screaming babies nearby=no sleep for becca. I really really need to go to the bathroom, but there is turbulence so I am not allowed to get out of my seat. I remember telling someone that if there was turbulence over the Atlantic I would be scared to death, but yet it is the exact opposite; things are so monotonous that every dip and jerk of the airplane is a welcome change. If the pilot does not turn the fasten seat belts sign off soon, I am going whether they like it or not. Well, I will probably write again when we get to the hotel in Frankfurt. The time goes so slowly! It feels like each minute is an hour when you fly through a sunset and three hours later you begin to see a sunrise. Well, good morning and goodbye.