Back in the USA
We arrived at New York’s JFK airport at 6:15am. Pitch black outside. Just think, yesterday at this time, I was on Warren’s balcony in Buenos Aires, underneath a blazing sun.
A couple of hours later, we were back in DC. Including our connections, we took a total of 13 flights in 23 days. That’s a lot of flying.
We visited the American Airlines baggage desk to ask about our lost baggage credit, and the lady told us to send copies of our receipts to the corporate office. What are the chances I also get them to pay for the sweet Brazilian clothes I bought in Rio?
On the cab ride home, a few things stuck out. Mounds of dirty snow along the roads, relatively courteous drivers, and an uncomfortable familiarity with my surroundings. After three weeks of the exotic unknown, Columbia Pike is a bit of a downer.
Tomorrow, we’re back at work. Traveling somewhere amazing, and knowing that there are so many other places out there bigger and better that you have not seen yet, makes the daily grind at work seem pretty insignificant.
A friend once told me that one of the best things about traveling is that you’ll be sitting in a boring meeting at work one day and your mind will wander to some far-off place a lot more exciting. You’ll remember jumping the waves on Ipanema, being on Copacabana Beach for New Year’s, braving the streets of Salvador, being sprayed by the mist of Iguazu Falls, going into a hookeria, visiting the southernmost city in the world, or hopping around glaciers. And while everyone else is busy talking about something that really doesn’t matter, you’ll sit there and smile.
He was right.
This really was a great trip. We saw a heckuva lot in three weeks, and I think we timed everything just about perfectly. The food was amazing, truly a steakation. Doug (he’s “Doug” now that we’re back on American soil) estimates that we each put away about 30 pounds of steak.
Having completed two big trips with Doug, I’ve decided that we’re pretty compatible travel partners. While I took care of pretty much everything on our first trip, he really helped out with some of the trip planning this time around. He doesn’t annoy me, and we keep each other laughing. He took photos when I was too scared to take out my camera, and he proved to be quite the videographer. And he always let me have the window seat.
Where should we go next year? 🙂
My name is Jeff. I'm a
One Response to “Back in the USA”
December 15th, 2012 at 12:25 am
If baggage caerghs are a necessary criteria for choosing an airline for your flight, then you will have exactly two options Southwest (who does not charge for the first two checked bags per passenger) and JetBlue (who does not charge for the first checked bag per passenger). Of these two airlines, you’ll need to see whether they serve the airports you’re looking to fly from in California both of these airlines have service between California and the Baltimore/Washington International Airport (BWI), but both of these airlines don’t serve every airport in the state, either.