Making the sign of the Cross all the way to Bali

Dear God, I pray that we all make it to our destinations safely. Put a hedge of protection over all passengers, pilots, flight attendants, etc. Let your will be done in our lives. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.

No I'm not catholic, or any other denomination for that matter, but being on all these airplanes has me making the sign of the cross like my dad did. 

Guess you're curious where I am going. I'm curious too :) Sabbatical Sally returns, but this time, on steroids. Not literally, of course. 

First stop (for longer than 4 hours): Bali, Indonesia and surrounding areas.
Duration: 10 days

Next stop: starting in Cairns, Australia and traveling down the east coast.
Duration: not sure? (Approx. 4.5 weeks)

When I say not sure I mean, I have a idea of when I think I'd like to come back, but I am actually not sure because I don't know where I will be when I am ready to come back or when that will be. So for now I have no ticket home. I have to leave on Sept 6 to make it back for my mom's shoulder surgery so that's the "plan" but who knows. I might head home early. Maybe I'll be missing my god son and nephews and family so badly that I want to leave behind the kangaroos and beaches and surfing and camping and beautiful scenery and hippy lifestyle :) love will make you do crazy things. 

What I left behind in Dallas: a house, bills, a roomie, sam flan, two dogs,  my crazy amazing momma, an awesome sister, an insane bro in law, and three fantastic nephews. One that was crying "ditdy, please take me on da airplane" as I was saying goodbye. So as of July 28th around 5pm pre boarding my first flight I was already homesick.

Flight from DFW to LAX (3 hours): In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. I flew Virgin America. Holy cow. It's lit by black lights with hot pink lights up above, the crew is cool, the safety instructions are funny talking about the .0001% of people on the plane that don't know how to fasten a  seat belt, and if you do Main Cabin Select its not quite first class but it's an upgrade worth making.you either pay $25 to check a bag or $69 for bag check,  Extra leg room (like I'm so desperate for extra leg room), personal tvs with free on demand movies, tv, radio, UNLIMITED FREE FOOD, DRINK, SNACKS!!!! Free absolute vodka, free jelly bellys, free fruit/cheese platter, free sandwich, free pringles, free snickers, free cokes, free premium alcohol. Let's just say it was an investment I do not regret and I came out ahead. It got to the point where I wasnt even hungry or thirsty, I was just waiting for them to say okay, you hit your max, you have to pay $100 for that mini water. But it never happened.  The people on either side of me must have known I was a Virgin America virgin. They had their wits about them while I was a 5 yr old in a candy store. They each had one mini bottled water and a bag of chips and a meal. HA and they think I'm the amateur. I wanted to scream "hey guys its free!!!!!!" Nothing in life is free. Especially on planes. You have to pay to use the pot now so don't even bother reminiscing the days when you got a full can of sprite and unlimited peanuts or pretzels. As if a $150 ticket to lax couldn't cover a can of coke and 10 measly pretzels. Ill tell my kids about the good old days just like my dad told me stories of paying 25 cents for a movie ticket. Okay jet lag is setting in and I'm off topic... Moving on...In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.

What I left behind in LA: a yoga going, "chi" having, salmon making, hilariously broke, wishes he was eligible for unemployment, sweet talkin, obsessive compulsive while still managing to have a hippy personality, swagger old spice wearing brother that I love. Maybe too much. It was pure stupidity to arrive at LAX from DFW (pretty tipsy from said free alcohol) at 7:45pm, claim my bag, recheck my bag, and hop in a cab to head to Power Yoga in Santa Monica 20 minutes away to attend a 90 minute class from 8:30-10pm, shoot the breeze with some yogis, grab a Gatorade, small talk with my bro and his buddy, shower, wait for a cab, get in a cab that had no idea where the international terminal was, and hall ass across the airport to gate 144 by 10:50pm ( Just sounds far, doesn't it? Ya, It was.) Mind you, I'm luggin 50+ lbs worth of camera equipment, laptop, external hard drive, etc in two carry on bags. I made it by 11:28pm for my 11:50pm flight to Hong Kong. I was the last person to go through the gate and they escorted me to a bus that would take us to our plane with about 632 Hong Kong-anites looking pissed at me for holdin them up. Because we were all in such a hurry to get on our plane we would be on for 14 hours, apparently. And after all that pure chaos, it was so worth it. Told you I might love him too much.
Oh and a best friend I didn't get to see. Love ya Evvy. 

Flight from LAX to Hong Kong(13 hrs and 40 minutes):  In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Cathay pacific. window seat. Score! Except the people in the row were brutal. They didnt want to let me up for anything! Good thing I only peed once in 14 hours. I learned that the nice lesbian hong kong-anite sitting next to me is into nurses so that was interesting. Besides that I ate fish for dinner with the cutest silverware I've ever seen on a plane (which I saved them the trouble of throwing away) slept a bit, watched "Hall Pass", slept, attempted to watch  "Despicable Me", slept, slept, ate scrambled eggs, slept, and finally watched "Despicable Me". I can see why first class would be nice for only a few thousand dollars extra. ha. I was curled up in a ball like a normally due but the seat was jabbing me on the right and the heavier set lesbian was flowing into my area on my left. I was sore from yoga and exhausted but almost unable to sleep (for the first time in history, folks). Needless to say I was happy to make the sign of the cross when we landed and get the heck off that plane. Oh and a special shout out to my sister and her hubby for letting me borrow these phenomenal noise canceling headphones. Life savers.  In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.

What I left behind in Hong Kong: an immigration form I never needed to fill out. Sorry I don't read Chinese and every other human on the plane did so they didn't feel the need to tell me where to go. I followed my plane mates to immigration then waited for my bag that would never arrive bc it's going straight from lax to Bali to then go up stairs, through security, and back through immigration. At least it gave me something to do at 4:45am in hong kong when I had over 5 hours til take off to Bali. Wifi didnt work. Nothing was open. And my gate wasn't displayed yet but if you're still reading this you should appreciate all that other wise I would have been distracted doing something besides blogging. Around 7:30am I grabbed McDonalds breakfast which makes me wanna throw up just talking about, then finally saw my gate number 19 displayed and headed there, curled up across a couple seats with my bags and the blanket I cleptoed from the previous flight and crashed til it was time to board the seemingly short 4 hour flight to Denpasar. 

Flight from Hong Kong to Bali (4 hours): In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Cathay pacific. Window seat. I was fully prepared to get on this plane, put on my noise cancelers and zone out but instead I waited to see who would sit next to me...ha. So glad I did. Meet Matt and Freja (pronounced fray-uh) Robinson from San Francisco. Together for 12 years, married for 4 of those years. Perfect hippy plane drunkards. I say plane drunkards because I don't actually think they are drunkards, just when they are 20 hour voyages, plus matt is afraid of flying. My entertainment for the following four hours would consist of stories of matt and freja's adventures all over the world and watching matt open the overhead compartment only to watch, not one, but two bags fall from the overhead compartment directly onto the woman's head in front of us and proceed to spill her drink. Oh and did I mention he was trying to get his 6 mini Jack Daniels bottles from his bag that he and Freja bought at the duty free shop in Hong Kong? Ha. Well the woman in front of us was furious and ended up writing out a report to the airline but it supplied the three of us in row 58 with a solid couple hours of laughter. And for that I thank both Matt and the woman in front of us for being the butt of our joke. Ahh it hurts. Oooo gaaa. My abs hurt from yoga. Whooo saaaa. So funny. Okay. 56 minutes til we land. Then an hour drive to Ubud to my hostel. I think the pool sounds amazing. Hmm do they have a pool? I looked at so many freaking hostels I can't even remember. I'm gonna rest for the remainder of the flight. In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.

I ended up catching a ride with the San Franciscans to Ubud. Our places are about 3 minutes from each other. Courtney got in last night around 10pm. We will see where the wind blows us today :)

Have a good day world wide web