KP in KL

After a short two week visit in Katy, I'm back in KL. I had a great time with family and friends, Madison's wedding was beautiful, and the two weeks flew by quicker than I anticipated. I got more than my share of Mexican and Italian food and pretty much every other food, which will be right up there on the list of "most missed things from Texas" besides my people of course. My wonderful husband decided to get up at 5am this morning and sacrifice his "always early to work" status to meet me at the airport so I didn't have to make the ride back alone. After the 22 hours of flying, my tailbone is a little shorter and my rear end flatter than a pancake. However, I have no other complaints this time, so I consider this trip a success.

My sister dropped me off at the airport in Houston, and I feared I could be dealing with another Charles De Gualle experience as I had in Paris. I should have known things would go smoothly when as soon as I walked through the double doors, the TV screen with my flight number and check in line was immediately in front of me shining on my face, so there was no searching or asking directions from people who had no idea what they were talking about.



As I stood in line I tried to come to grips with the fact I was leaving the land of shorts and summer clothes (to be replaced by jeans, large floral tunics, and entirely too much body covering fabric for this heat in KL), and the man's tooled leather belt with his wranglers who stood in front of me would be the last I would see probably until Christmas. The southern hospitality I was shown when the airline employee didn't charge me $100 for the extra weight my bag was bearing, will be missed.



I boarded the plane to Amsterdam with several Dutch speaking people and wound up sitting next to a husband and wife who were both sporting a mini mullet. They were not from the United States. Of course I slept half the plane ride to Amsterdam, and arrived at the airport prepared yet again to get the run-around at this huge airport. But, with the bright yellow signs everywhere there was no way to make a mistake at this airport.



While following the signs, I realized I should have moved to Holland instead of Malaysia. Me and my blonde hair were actually the majority, and so much that people would first speak to me in Dutch thinking I was from there! That was a nice change of pace. Shockingly I found the transfer desk and made it to my gate with 2 hours to spare. My entertainment for a while was the two women doing exercises and stretching like they were about to compete in the Olympics, which was then interrupted by "that guy" who we've all seen at the airport. The one who thinks they can be rude to anyone for any reason and cause a scene large enough that he has the attention of every traveler in the airport. Thankfully he wasn't screaming at me, but a poor airline employee instead. In the end, the airline employee won the fight with his soft voice, and things settled down. I used the rest of my time to walk circles around the airport to try to get the swelling in my feet and ankles to go down. For some reason this has happened on every trip so far, and I'm still walking around with cankles as we speak. So, a note for the next traveler with a long flight: don't wear tight shoes, and especially don't wear really cute strappy sandals that end up looking not so cute after your feet swell so much they start leaving indentions in your skin.

I left the land of blondes to board Malaysia Airlines. This time I had two Spaniards sitting next to me who did not have mullets thank goodness. However, they were sporting sandals with socks. There has to be a name for that because there were so many people wearing sandals with socks in Amsterdam. I think I will call them sandalocks. I did not get the memo that this was the way to travel. But, now that I think about it, maybe the socks act as a protective agent against the sandal straps when your feet swell? I'm going to stick with the old saying, beauty is pain. But really, what happens when those individuals wearing sandals with their socks step into a giant rain puddle?

Anyway, I took some Tylenol PM when I got on the plane, so I was oblivious to everything that happened from there for the next 9 hours, including the awesome snack pack they passed out only to those people not sleeping. I woke up with my mouth wide open and the pillow drenched, so I'm sure I was a source of entertainment for the sandalocks wearing Spaniards. But the trip went by very quickly, and I was on the ground in Malaysia by 6am, and back to the apartment in no time.

A few adjustments to the apartment are 1. the drain is fixed so there has not been anymore leaking, and 2. Paul bought a grill with the diameter of a dinner plate. It's so small he has it sitting on top of the patio table. I think we will be lucky if we can grill two steaks at once this weekend. In Paul's defense, he had to carry whichever grill he bought from the store to the house, so he was forced to get a dinner plate sized grill out of practicality, not because it's the cutest little miniature grill you've ever seen.



And to pick up where I left off last time about some fishy business with a certain friend we will call Jane Smith for our own protection in case somehow she learns our last name or finds this blog, here's a quick summary of what happened while I was in Houston:
Jane Smith stopped by for a quick visit with Paul to find out if he could be so nice to buy 7 tickets to fly the family out of the country the following day to "fix her business" because accounts have been frozen due to some money laundering allegations.
That's an extremely condensed version. But, Jane Smith's family is still not back, and some people are speculating that she and the family are gone for good running from money issues. Of course several people have said there's no telling what she's involved in, but I'm just hoping she doesn't have a machete mafia after her (guns aren't allowed here in KL) because I would hate to get drug into any of that business being her neighbor who now knows where she was planning on going. I'm praying that things stay very quiet here around the apartment and Jane Smith and her family stay wherever they ran off to. And, in case you had any doubts, Paul did not buy any plane tickets for her. Should she return, I'm thinking the best friend-neighbor idea she claims her father had is not going to work out so well.