Day 15: The long trip home

We woke up at 4:00AM this morning and left the hotel around 5:30AM. Actually, we were supposed to leave at 5:30, but I had a little run-in with the staff at the White Swan when I was trying to check out. I paid my agency in advance for the hotel room, which also inclued breakfast for all four of us. First, they tried to charge me for the room. I told them, no, I had already paid for the room. Then the woman got out my paperwork and crossed off that charge. Then she tried to charge me over $250 in other charges. This was also wrong because we only ate once in the hotel (besides breakfast). The only other charges we had were Pringles from the minibar (about $4) and internet charges (which was about $40 for the week). I told them I needed to see receipts for the other $150 in charges. At that time, the woman pretended not to understand what I was saying. I called our guide, Bob, over to help. He called Kathy to double check that she had paid for the room (she had). A lot of back and forth between Bob and the woman and voila~ I only owed the $100 I thought I owed. But the woman did make me give her my e-mail address and she told me she would let me know if I owed more. Most people would have probably just paid, but not me. I know my dad was proud of me for standing up to them!!

We first had to fly from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. The flight was about an hour and both girls did well. Then we flew from Hong Kong to Sanfrancisco. What a nightmare!!!!! I may never fly again!! OK, I know I will, but will have to think long and hard before I do. The girls were a handful the first half of the flight. My poor mom had both girls in her lap. The wanted nothing to do with me. About halfway into our 10.5 hour flight, they finally settled down and sat in their own seats. About this time, the turbulence was horrible!! It was scary and continued for most of the second half of the trip. Thankfully, the girls were not frightened.

We got to San Francisco about 7:30 AM. We had about 3 hours to get to our flight home. Immigration and customs were easy to get through and only took a few minutes. I am so thankful my travel agent had us go through SF instead of Los Angeles. I've heard LA can take a long time. We got to our terminal and found a Burger King!!! Yea!! American fast food!! We ate and then headed to our gate. The flight from SF to Houston was about 3.5 hours. The girls slept most of the way home, thank goodness. We landed about 4:40 Houston time. We got our luggage and headed home, walking in the door about 6:30 PM, 27 hours after we left home. We were all exhausted, but happy to be home.

We managed to stay up through Americal Idol and then headed to bed around 9:00. What a long day!!