When Mother Comes to Visit

My mom is visiting. It's becoming a tradition that when she visits I plan a short trip somewhere fun and frivolous. Last year it was Universal in Orlando. This year we are in Los Angeles, a city that was the first city in this country that I visited. I was sick at the time and bewildered by the enormity and how to navigate my way around. But I remember the trip to Universal and Disneyland as being marvelous, if only because of how far removed they were from anything real. Between that memory and S's gushing praise for the city from a recent visit, the plan was solidified.

Getting her from Chicago was not a nightmare even though our original flight was delayed enough for us to have missed our connecting flight and so Southwest rebooked us onto a direct flight with no fuss. Our suitcase didn't arrive with us and honestly it was remarkable how easily they found it and delivered it to our hotel. I was both grateful and also unperturbed by this -- losing a suitcase is not fun but it is also not the worst thing that could happen. As long as all lives and limbs are intact, it could always have been worse.

Yesterday was spent taking a bus tour of..well not just LA but also surrounding cities. Griffith Observatory has to be my favorite and if I ever come back, I plan to hike the trails there. Everything else, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Rodeo Drive, while entertaining was so far removed from what I think of as reality that it didn't really interest me much. Learning about the likes of Petra Ecclestone is hardly a way to feel good about yourself and I am working hard to avoid comparisons these days, I find that I am leaning too easily into the dissatisfaction that comes with them. Hollywood boulevard was lively and had stores we could enter knowing that of something catches our eye, we could buy it (Marshall's, Forever 21). It was also good for souvenirs (I'm a sucker for a whimsical magnet).

I type this from a 30 minute long queue for a Matterhorn ride that better be something special because this is an interminable line, further disenchanting me from this fairytale world.

My favorite part so far is the fact that my mom and I both enjoy the downtime at the end of a day full of touristy activities. Being able to buy my own wine (as opposed to the exorbitant hotel prices) also makes my holiday better.

Tarmac Tales

We all have those flights. The ones where you clap when you take off and then when you land. One day after graduation and I am headed to New York for our capstone project presentation. It is exciting but I also really want to nap and figure out the rest of my life. It is a cold blustery day. I decide to take a bus and the train instead of a SuperShuttle to economize as an unemployed student. My suitcase almost gets blown away on the street, my hair is whipped into a tangled frenzy. 'Summer' in Minneapolis is here.

Back (to the real world)

I am back in Minneapolis. Nowhere close to being settled, still have to shift houses and giant mattress that is the stuff my nightmares are made of. But I am back. It was a long, arduous journey, with stopovers at Frankfurt (reasonable) and Newark (delayed by 2-3 hours in addition to the 3 hour wait time. I had no watch or access to time and couldn't really tell. Which I think was for the best). It was a miserable trip, full of being sick and itchy-twitchy, hacking my lungs out and sneezing, and hallucinating. But who wants to hear about that. Or the fact that I love the world a little less after being in transit for 40 hours. Let me tell you about some of the other fun highlights:

Scored lots of free Internet at the Delhi airport by using sibling and sibling's friends phone numbers. Feel little guilty about extra customer representative calls they will get but since I was checked-in 3 hours in advance, needed some entertainment.

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Home (for now)

Leaving Vietnam was easier than I thought it would be. Leaving Hue city, not as much. By the end of my time there, I had a life, a routine I enjoyed and friends. Our work towards the end was chaotic but even so, the farewells felt difficult emotionally and were full of small kindnesses. Souvenirs and parties and gifts and trips and banana pancakes. We visited our ever-kind and gracious coffee lady (and maybe used an open window in her house to drop a gift when the coffee shop was shut), we said bye to people at the Indian restaurant, we had farewell parties with staff at CORENARM and with people at our hotel (Khach San Duong Sat). Spending time with a lovely three-year old Suri made everything a lot more fun.

Getting to Hue

Our trip to Hue was full of adventures. Adventures that began even before our flight took off. We had booked VietJet flights since it is comparatively inexpensive. I definitely had a ton of luggage and was worried about excess baggage but the website told us 32 kgs! Yay because the limit was 23 kgs when I flew from the States and boy did that get me into trouble even with planning. We went to the VietJet counter outside at the terminal to figure out baggage limits and turns it out it was 25 kgs per person and 7 kgs for hand baggage (which they weigh - this is the first time I saw that happening. I think I flew in almost 15 kgs from Minneapolis (at no point could I lift the suitcase I had on person, even with all my muscles and strength). The lady at the counter spoke little English and we, well, we speak no Vietnamese. She kept asking us how much our luggage weighs and we kept saying we need weighing scales and this went on for a while.

In Ho Chi Minh

It is 2.30 at night and I can't fall asleep. I landed in Ho Chi Minh after a journey that at 36 hours may be the longest time I have been in transit (in air). As always, it was very interesting. The flight from Chicago to Tokyo both had no in flight entertainment ( that baffled me a little) and was delayed. I made it to the Tokyo flight with perhaps 10 minutes to spare. I was prepared for the worst but am glad it didn't happen. I definitely ran at the airport and with that gave up on my vision of a suave worldly traveler. Instead I am the person whose suitcase falls, things fall out of my bag(s) and in all my flights I needed help to lift my carry on. I don't want to know how much it weighed seriously.

I stepped out of the flight and thought this air smells familiar even if I have never been here before. Everything went off smoothly and I was out in ten minutes. Meagan came to get me at the airport and it was great to see a familiar face among the sea of people and we haggled around till we found the least exorbitant taxi (you can't get the cheapest ones at the airport anymore). I just have one day here before we fly out to Hue and am looking forward to exploring the city. As the flight landed I could see a bustling city, full of lights and shop signs flashing in red, blue and green. We haven't fully planned the day yet but I hope to do as much as I can.