The Journey Begins

Today is the day where more than four months of planning finally comes to fruition and the journey finally begins.

First, about 20 friends came out for a little going away dinner last night. I had promised myself to only have a few drinks such that I wouldn’t be hung over in the morning. Unfortunately, one drink often leads to another, and before I knew it I had a nice little chorus line of empty glasses on the table. I still felt fine, but I knew I was probably going to have a rough sleep and wake up feeling like garbage.

I randomly ran into one of my co-workers from my previous job who just happened to be up visiting from San Francisco, so we had a few drinks after everyone else went home. That was probably the final nail in the hangover coffin. I got back to the hotel room around midnight, and set my alarm for 4:30am.

It seems like almost immediately after putting my head on the pillow, my alarm clock sprang to life, forcing me to get up. I was still completely exhausted, but I had to head to the airport and get checked in. I quickly packed up the laptop and whatever else was lying around, checked out from the hotel lobby, and then took a cab to the airport.

For the most part check-in was relatively painless. I managed to use my Nexus pass, which probably saved me about 10 minutes in the US Customs Line, but it wasn’t very bad anyways. At that point my head started pounding so I hit a little store in the airport and bought some advil and water.

The flight to Houston left about 25 minutes late, since I guess someone had checked bags but then decided not to make it to the plane on time. So, they had to open the plane up and pull their luggage out, which delayed everyone. At that point I popped two Ativan (which my doctor prescribed to me to help reduce anxiety while traveling), and passed out against the window. I woke up off and on during the flight, but I spent about 80% of it sleeping, which is as good as a flight as you can get in my books.

I’m currently sitting in Houston airport at the Continental’s President’s Lounge. It cost me $50 to get in here, but there are free drinks, snacks, and wifi, so it’s a pretty good deal when you have five hours to kill like I do.

My flight to Buenos Aires leaves tonight at 9pm, arriving tomorrow morning at around 10am local time. So, I still have another large leg of travel ahead of me, one which I’ll hopefully be able to sleep through. I’m looking forwarded to landing in Buenos Aires and getting the keys to my apartment, after which I can start exploring the city. I’m also really looking forward to picking up some groceries and cooking a few meals on my own again. I actually enjoy cooking, and it’s been over two month’s since I’ve had my own kitchen to experiment in. So, that will be a priority as well.

Thanks to everyone who came out last night for the big send off. It was great seeing everyone, and it’s a great memory I can think back on as I travel from country to country. I have five more hours to kill here, and then it’s 10 hours to Buenos Aires. Until then.