Airports will be studied by future archaeologists like the pyramids in 10000 years

A lot of people asked us how we were feeling before we left. The assumption was that we were brimming over with excitement and enthusiasm to start our trip. A lot of you (quite understandably) wanted us to feel this way because you’re our friends and family, but also because you’d like to get the hell out of town and travel yourselves and if given the opportunity we have, would be fired up like a hot air balloon to get on the road. At the risk of being offered a wide variety of cheeses to go with my disposition, I must admit that, sitting in the airport, waiting to leave Chicago on our way to Mexico, we both decided that we felt less than buoyant about the trip. Our defining emotion was stressed out. But before you put up a photo of Sue and I labeled “ungrateful whiners” to throw darts at, let me explain.

In the past, both of us have travelled fairly extensively. Sue throughout Europe, Asia, and the US and I in Asia and the US. Before every trip (even the Jewitt family Chicago trip I ruined by being a jerk/14 year-old), both of us have been excited about travelling to the point of being unable to sleep well for a day or more before in anticipation of the trip. Travelling has always been like Christmas to us. The past few nights before this trip, on the other hand, have been so full of errands, day trips, and managed chaos that we haven’t had much time to contemplate the trip. Even if we did have time in the past week, the fact of the matter is that we have spent the past 10 months planning, contemplating, fantasizing about, and generally mentally preparing ourselves for the trip. For those of you that hung out with us in NYC, we were pretty lame for a good chunk of the past 10 months in the service of saving money for the trip. We stayed in and dreamed about this trip, re-organizing and shaping where we would go, when we would go, what we would do, etc. Not a day went by when we were not in posession of at least one travel guide, and we generally had 3-5 at once. Many of you know how frustrating and difficult I felt my job to be the last year, and planning and dreaming of this trip helped me get by. Same goes for Sue. Her job was completely for the purpose of financing this trip and she was unhappy at the job’s lack of challenges almost immediately. In other words, we have dedicated ourselves to this trip for the past 10 months and now that it’s here, it’s almost as if it isn’t real. It’s been like making a Christmas list 10 months in advance and checking and re-checking it repeatedly over that span. In the end, no matter how great Christmas is, it feels sort of anti-climactic.

However . . . . I’m happy to say that now that the plane is over the Midwest (and after a nap) I feel a hell of a lot better about the trip. Maybe it was hearing the Spanish over the PA, or maybe it’s just finally feeling buoyed (literally as opposed to figuratively) by this trip that’s doing it. In any case, this is when the planning ends and the trip begins and it’s going to be a lot different than even my most vivid fantasies.

I’m still worried about my Spanish though, despite Jen’s best efforts to give me resources.

-Dan