Here's how NOT to combat jet-lag:

Write a blog post in a hysterically sleep-deprived state for all the world-wide-webbins to see.

Dear www,

It's me, again. Jason & I have had a long day. As in, literally, a 33-hour-long thanks to changing time zones. We stayed up packing & cleaning until 3AM, and woke up at 5AM to finish.

On our way out, we left Ruffles at the door of our helpful neighbor, with a note thanking him for being a friendly neighbor, and informing him that he should have a Merry Christmas, and of course, informing him of the plant's name. Fernadine, on the other hand, was given a solemn burial in the trash can (I told you, I have the Black Thumb of Death).

Checking in our luggage at the airport, they told us that we couldn't check three suitcases--only one suitcase per person! However, the typical loophole soon surfaced-- throw cash at them. $150, specifically. We agreed to pay the ransom for our poor suitcase, since there were probably more than $150 of clothes/books inside it. We went to a separate counter to pay the $150, where they suddenly declared that it was totally acceptable for us to check three bags. They said we didn't have to pay. Thank. Goodness.

We flew from Copenhagen to Frankfurt, Germany (I kept accidentally calling it Frankenfurter. Although, frankly, I like my version better.) ("Frankly." Get it? heh.) (Heh, heh.) (Heh. Might I remind you of the title of this post?) I LOVE the Frank(en)furt(er) airport. Old German men with Einstein moustaches pedal their luggage around on little rented bikes, and concession stands vend pretzels, sausages and beer. It's a circus, in the best stereotypically-German way possible.

Aaaand cue 11-hour transcontinental flight. It was fascinating to watch out the window as we chased the sunset westward across the globe. We passed time with Sudoku, movies, and laughing at each other for no reason other than sleeplessness (the best kind of laughing, don't you think?)

We were served strange German sandwiches towards the end of the flight, packaged together with potato chips and a Kit-Kat bar. That's a straight-up BUTTER SLAB sitting on that piece of bread there. Apparently the flight attendants had taken a liking to us over the 11 hours, because a steward returned back with a few extra Kit-Kat bars and a sly wink. Then he came back AGAIN, this time setting a complete package in front of Jason, silently pointing to the food, then to him, with a nod. We considered it atonement for the initial baggage battle in Denmark, happily stuffed the free food in our bags, and landed in San Francisco.

HOME TURF! As we waited for our luggage to circle by, a TSA employee led an adorably cheerful beagle around on a leash as he sniffed everyone's bags for contraband food (I think that I should clarify it was the dog doing the sniffing). They busted one befuddled German who had brought bananas into the States (God FORBID, I know.) The beagle approached our bags and I tried to reassure myself that we wouldn't get in trouble for the Friendly Flight Attendant Food Cache.

The little dog sniffed at our backpack. He took a step back, and tilted his head. After taking a few more cautious sniffs, he moved on. Apparently airplane meals don't quite register as food to his finely-tuned nose.

After re-checking our luggage, we happily hurried to our last connection: from San Franscisco to Home Sweet Home Eugene, Oregon!!!! At this point, we had stayed up until 3AM according to our Sveedish internal clocks and were really, really looking forward to sleeping in our own bed.

Alas, it was not meant to be. The plane is delayed from 7:30PM to 10:30PM, and here I am, wrapping up an absurdly long blog post in a frantic attempt to stay awake.

Gack.