Tag: flying

Getting there is half the battle, but so worth it

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

It’s a blinding blue 60-degree Monday in Florence, Italy, and I just about broke my neck slipping on a yellow glob of melting gelato on the sidewalk. Except for the fact that I almost became a paraplegic, I will not complain. 

See, this happened a block from my hotel, which — both boon and bane — is plumb in the fluttering heart of the ancient Renaissance city center: the Duomo, Medici Museum, Academia, Uffizi, and I’ll stop before this embarrassment of riches makes me flush. I say bane because it’s teeming with bodies — though, from what I gather, most are locals; they’re speaking Italian and looking stunningly chic. Locals are good, even local tourists. They almost always make a journey better. Fellow American tourists? Meh.

Yet I’ve only been here an hour, so what do I know? Maybe I’ll get mugged, or pummeled for persistently mispronouncing grazie. Big plans await this week in Tuscany, a region peppered with medieval towns and fecund vineyards and a particular tower with dismal posture. I will tour cathedrals and museums, take day trips to crumbly towns, and sip vino, nectar of the gods (next to bourbon and gin).

An angle of the Duomo, Florence

Getting abroad is always fun for me, ha. I can’t sleep on the seven- to 10-hour red-eyes, and this time I had a delightful layover in Munich, where the short flight to Florence was delayed and my fortitude, eyes and shoulders were drooping gruesomely, Quasimodo-ly. 

Finally we were herded into a standing-room-only shuttle bus and dumped at the bottom of steep stairs leading to a tiny jet. Ascending, I felt like Joe Biden, like I should turn and wave to the press scrum and his half dozen fans.

I had a bad feeling about this winged, rickety rust bucket. When it finally got off the ground, creaking and rattling, I was reminded of a bi-plane, or worse, one of those tiny-tot airplanes you put a quarter in and rock about on the curbside in front of Safeway or Target. 

But we made it, despite the bloody fingernails and crippling jet lag. More on how the hell it’s all going down later. For now, a much-needed cocktail at swooningly classy bar/restaurant/book and flower shop La Ménagère, a stone’s throw from the Duomo:

Winkless at 35,000 feet

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Right now it’s 104 degrees at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, which seems appropriate considering the facility’s infernal namesake. I have arrived from the East Coast, where it was 74 at 10 a.m. — it will hit 94 — and I am connecting to a flight that will take me to the land of 54 degrees, for it is winter in Buenos Aires, my latest destination on my quest to see as much of the world as I can before it blows up.

Hours later, I write this in the dark on a punishing nine-hour redeye during that weird interval when the pilot douses the cabin lights so his human cargo can go sleepy time. I’m a jet-plane insomniac so that trick ain’t working. Instead I atrophy in my seat, reading a bit, maybe watching a few minutes of a movie (or eavesdropping on what others are watching — almost uniform tripe), but mostly fiddling my brain’s thumbs and sneaking the occasional mini bottle of scotch that I smuggled aboard. (Contraband. I rule.)

Of course, as always, the guy next to me is comatose, swaddled in a blue airline blankie, a rivulet of drool squiggling down his chin — paradise. And there I’ll be when we disembark, sleep-deprived, pissed-off, testy, tetchy, impatient — and singing glory hallelujah I’m in South America, my first time on the continent! Bloodshot eyeballs, bewhiskered, frowzy hair — who cares. The miracle of modern aeronautics has delivered me someplace new and far, uncharted and exciting. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into.

And that’s the gist of it. No matter how physically miserable I am right now — there’s six hours left on the flight and I’ll be burning untold calories fidgeting, not to mention enduring fearsome temblors of turbulence — I still have much to look forward to, lots of which I’ll probably share here. 

Meanwhile, I have a funny novel to finish, some hooch to furtively sip and a few episodes of “Rick and Morty” to watch. Things could be a hell of a lot worse.

Travel travails: trying to jettison on-the-road angst

~ Chris ~ 1 Comment

Just before I embark on my vacations people reflexively ask if I’m excited and looking forward to it, assuring me I’ll have a wonderful time and wads of other tinkly bromides. Invariably I grimace and nod, “Yeah. I think so … Sure. OK, thanks.”

But I’m never sure, and it’s not OK. As I pack and prepare I’m a minor wreck, wracked, withdrawn — enthused, yes, but freighted with the cargo of myriad far-off what-ifs and other terrifying variables.

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I have no qualms about flying; I like flight. My innate angst resides in about, well, pretty much everything else: Flight on time! Make my connection! Will it rain at my destination! Will my Airbnb be as cool as the photos! Will I be able to communicate with the locals! Will I get robbed! Will I contract a food-borne illness! Is that baby-jar museum as rocking as it looks!

I had a small stroke applying for my Russian visa recently. As I’ve noted earlier, it was a multi-tentacled task and very pricey. With the stroke, I developed a bleeding ulcer. For some reason this trip — much more than my jaunts to China, Vietnam, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria — has me more angsty than ever.

I write this today attempting to relax in United Airlines Terminal C at the airport, from which I’ll depart to St. Petersburg, Russia, with a brief stopover in Zurich, Switzerland. I have mere minutes to catch my connecting flight. The layover is impossibly miniscule.

It is not promising. I have four stomach-twisting inklings: 1) I will miss my connection. 2) I will be spending the night in Switzerland, on my dime. 3) My luggage will be in Russia. 4) I will lose a day in St. Petersburg. (Bonus inkling: I will sob.)

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Besides that eventuality, I am also worried about the fact that you can’t drink the water in Russia — it will do a number on you. That’s barely a concern. Bottled water is a cinch and I’ve done the don’t-drink-the-water routine in several countries. But will the hair dryer work sufficiently? Will I fumble financial transactions, not knowing well the rubles/dollars exchange? Will my accommodations’ TV have satellite or simple local cable (I kinda need my CNN)?

These are obscenely, stupidly first-world worries, of course. I do swimmingly out of my comfort zone while traveling and I revel in the developing-country experience. I’ve proven it repeatedly. But I’m weirding out a little this time.

Relax, you’ll have a great time, they say. And I believe them, shakily. I’m conjuring my own anxieties via my own dark thoughts. These are fictions. I’m in the airport, through security, decompressing, with hours till my flight. I have a glass of wine. The journey has begun, and it’s not half bad.

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The Himalayas, out the window, above Nepal.