The passage of time...

I always find it interesting to travel far from home because I'm fascinated by the passage of time when you travel. I'm familiar with the phenomenon that time will speed up infinitely when you are on vacation and cause a week or more to pass in the blink of an eye, but that's not what I meant. It's curious to me that with the time change, we will leave Chicago at 7am our time on Thursday and then arrive in Taiwan on what would be Friday at 9am if we were at home, but what will be Friday at 10pm Taiwan time. We are effectively eliminating Friday, March 28 from our lives. Not all of it - but certainly what would be the usable portion of it! In this case, we don't actually "eliminate" a whole day, but I imagine that there are itineraries where that would actually be the case. I know the time isn't really gone - and we certainly do gain it back coming home. We leave Taiwan at 11:55pm and arrive in San Francisco at 7pm their time,(ostensibly before we've even left!) and then in Chicago at 5am their time, which will be 6pm in our heads. So we "skipped" the usable portion of April 9 in our heads, but then will actually go through it all in "real life". I'm sure that was clear as mud and now you all think these are the ramblings of a less than well slept, packing crazed, copy making fool. Go ahead and think that - I'm so far gone I won't even notice! But it is interesting in my head and one of the joys of travel for me. Now if I could just get that warp speed of vacation time to apply to the flights themselves, that would be great!!

My scrapbooking program arrived yesterday and I'm anxious to dig in. I was chagrined to find that we do not have power outlets in our seats for the long leg of the flight as I had previously thought. Oh well. We have a full day of touring planned for the Saturday after we arrive, so I think it's probably better if I rest some on the plane anyway. (that's what I'm telling myself to feel better about it...)

A week from today we take Kailin to Steve's parents' house and then head to my mom's for the night so she can take us to the airport! It's getting close! (as is my sister's due date - her doctor told her yesterday that he expects her to deliver a week or so early- so baby Henry could come while we're gone! I want whatever is best for him and for my sister, but HANG ON HENRY!!!! ))