Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff.

I'm SO far away from my cell phone right now. It's awesome. It's, like, on the other side of the world! This is the farthest away I've been from that awful thing since I decided it would be a good idea to get one.

Hello, everyone (that includes you). I miss you all already (especially you)! Right now I'm sitting in a coffee shop in London's Heathrow airport. I have 24 hours to kill because it was cheaper to fly out tomorrow than today. And I've never been one to complain about having to spend a day in London (yeah...it happens all the time). So it seemed like a good time to kick off this blog thing. There's not much to say but, at the very least, you'll know you've come to the right place when you see that there actually IS a post and it actually IS from me. Welcome.

I've been gone for a WHOPPING 20 hours but it seems like about three times that. Not in a bad way...I just feel like I've already been sitting on WAY too many planes for WAY too long for it to have only been 20 hours. But sure enough, it's noon:thirty here and, therefore, it is right around 4:30 in the AM where most of you are sleeping soundly (I would be jealous if I wasn't sitting in London sipping the most amazing coffee I've ever had [it's Italian...whatever]). But anyways, all that to say...I left around 7-ish yesterday morning, Longview time. And now it's about 4:32-ish, Longview time. Something like 20 or 21 hours. Math.

I thought I had a layover in Cinncinatti but it turned out to be just enough time to change planes. Initially I had big plans to nip this jet-lag thing in the bud by sleeping on the flight from Ohio to London after not getting much sleep the night before (by the way...the Cinncinatti airport isn't actually in Ohio. Yeah. Weird. It's on the Kentucky side of the river/border). This would have left me refreshed and ready to take on the world when I landed in London at 9:00 this morning. It made perfect sense and was gonna work out great because I was exhausted. Then I tried to sleep in a sitting position on a loud, cold airplane. I didn't sleep. I scored a fancy new blanket, though. It'll come in handy when I really do get some sleep tonight on an airport bench. It's the little things, I guess (the blanket...not the bench). My eyes are red.

I was apparently not paying attention when I booked my flight from London to Tel Aviv because this morning I had to spend over $30 for a shuttle ride to an entirely different and far away airport. The correct answer probably would have been to fly from London to Isreal via the same airport that I flew into from Cinncinatti. Thankfully, time was not an issue so I could take the slowest, cheapest route (still not very cheap). And the shuttle ride was actually a fun time. The bus driver was driving on the wrong side of the road, but so was everyone else, so I just let it slide. It was fun looking out the window and realizing that I take knowing how to drive for granted back home. It becomes second nature and it's hard to imagine not being able to figure it out. But being here and seeing the crazy roads and all the different signs and terms reminds me that it's not so easy at first. The radio station was...interesting. I guess what's popular here, now, is what was popular in America in the '90s. Or maybe it was a '90s pop station.

And that about covers it, so far. Pretty exciting, I know. The girls at the coffee shop I'm sitting at keep looking at me like, "are you ever gonna leave?" Or something like that. That's probably why they're giving me the looks. Or maybe I have a booger. If only I'd brought a mirror. I'm also taking up the biggest table in the place while a group of six weary travelers are crammed around this tiny round table across the room. I would be giving me looks, too.

As far as my plans for the rest of the day...you're looking at it. I might wander around the airport for a while, I still have some reading to do, and I'll probably devote at least a couple of minutes to pining away for all my long lost friends and family back home. I'm glad the whole world uses the same measurements for time. It's hard enough trying to figure out tempurature and distance. I would be completely lost if it was up to me to convert what time my flights leave or exactly how long I can pine away while still leaving enough time to finish my books.

Tomorrow afternoon at 12:50 I'll leave London and have a stop in Paris before continuing on to Tel Aviv. So long as all goes according to plan, I should arrive in Tel Aviv around midnight, local time. That'll be 2:00 in the afternoon for all my fans on the west coast. A guy named Kyle is picking me up from the airport and taking me back to Arad where I will probably stay for the first part of my time in Israel. I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have but I'll try to update when I can. Thank you all so much for your continued prayers and support. I love you all and look forward to seeing you again soon. Later!

.Tim