Oh, the joys of travel days

Travis just counted on his fingers how many times this year we have taken off on an airplane. Today marks our 14th flight. For some of you who are frequent business travelers, that number is probably no big deal. For Travis and I, just about each flight this year has marked our entry into a new country, a different culture, and sometimes another language. Each flight has also meant that we have once again packed up all of our worldly possessions we’re carrying with us this year and carting them off to another location. I wish I could say this process was simple. You may be thinking… “How easy, they’re not weighed down by a lot of stuff as they’re free to move from country to country with just their two sufficient suitcases.” Well, maybe it started out that way, but after living on-and-off the road for nine months with changing climates and varying professions as far as dress code, our bags have grown and so have their weight. I remember how exciting it was when we packed our bags for the first time heading out of Los Angeles last August. Well, packing just isn’t that fun anymore!

Tonight I am writing you aboard our plane from London to Rome. In fact, currently we’re flying over France. We’ve just spent the entire day going through the motions of yet another day of traveling adventure. Although, I don’t know if I’d call it an adventure- instead I’d say these days feel more like we are just walking through the many pre-determined necessary steps with hundreds of other travelers to get to the final destination. Today began at 9:00am from the lovely little farm we’ve spent our last five days working with the Man family. (More about this lovely family later…) Robin brought us to the largest nearby town of Attenborough, where we waited at a bus stop and then boarded our bus for our five-hour trip to the Gatwick airport in London. I’d have to say this bus was the coldest vehicle of travel I have been on in my entire life! The ice-cold air-vents were not just on for a source of refreshment, they were blowing out at gale-force winds from every direction. So, if you were unlucky enough to sit underneath one, which we were, within moments you could watch small icicles develop off the tip of your nose.

Around 3:00pm, with hungry tummies and very cramped legs we finally stepped off this mobile freezer. We gathered up our various parts of luggage and proceeded to check in for our flight, which was actually still 5 hours from this point. Lucky us, another day to kill in an airport… This is just how it all worked out with our bus/flight/reservation times. So, here we are at the check-in counter and we’re nervous. Why? Well, because we’ve expended much energy trying to figure out ways to downsize our luggage not to be charged with a fee for this flight. You see, on our last flight from Managua, we just barely made it within our weight allotment after having to re-shuffle our bags at the counter. For today’s flight, we were allotted with even less baggage weight and check-in amounts. To prepare for this, we purchased a new heavy-duty and big carry-on pack which we stuffed full of the heaviest things we owned. We also shipped a package home this week with some of our cooler temperature clothes since we’re heading south for the next few months. So, we placed the bags on the scales and, “blast!”… they were still overweight by 9 kilos together! Good thing we had another carry-on bag “on hold” in case this happened… There on the floor in front of the ticket counter we had to rearrange our bags until we had stuffed this other carry-on to the gills with the 9 kilos of weight. Oh what fun.

So now we’re checked in with all the time in the world to walk around, stretch our legs and explore the airport together. Wrong. In all honesty, each of our carry-ons (we both had two) were so incredibly heavy it was difficult to just take the weighed steps making it through airport security. We had to find the nearest corner to store our possessions and take turns walking around while the other guarded the luggage. Good times. Luckily, from there on out everything went pretty quickly and smoothly. This day was actually really nothing compared from our day traveling from Nicaragua back to Europe. That 24-hour day just two weeks ago encompassed a taxi ride, a bus ride, 3 separate flights, multiple security lines and customs, and even a 4-hour stay in a hotel airport. That was a day with real adventure.

Oh, but I’ve failed to mention one thing- my valiant travel worrying husband! With all due respect, Travis actually did quite well today. Well-planned out journeys do him good, especially when everything works out according to plan. (I just won’t mention here the days of his worries leading up to the actual travel day.) Let’s instead give him some credit. Because of these worries, Travis has a plan for every single possible calamity that could occur on a day such as this. From knowing the exact hours of the worse traffic when entering London, researching the exact amount of space we have in the overhead compartments to store our hand-luggage (& boarding right on-time to have access to this space), to having the exact change in the correct currency for our taxi driver when we reach the Rome airport. Ask him a travel question, he has it down pat. In fact, you could have asked him any question related to this travel day 2 weeks ago and he would have given you a well thought out and researched answer.

So, to sum this up… we’re now leaving England behind us and heading to Italy for another few exciting months of farm work ahead. We loved our time in England, we can’t wait to put our hands in the Italian soil. Our first stop is for two weeks of work at a small B&B and farm in the town of Carassai, in the Le Marche Region near Umbria. Depending on our internet access, we will keep you posted.