I traveled, I saw, I conquered.

Who knew that traveling could be so entertaining? I've gotten my fair share this past weekend (traveling a total of 13 hours in a 36 hour period, not including the 7 hours I spent just waiting in the airport for my flight) and I figure it could be an interesting subject to talk about (maybe some people will even read this!).

Let's start with discussion about being the (un)lucky person seated next to a chatty cathy on an airplane. You know, the chatty cathy who wants to keep a conversation for the duration of the flight but you hate small talk and just want to a) lay your head against the window and pretend to sleep so nobody bothers you, b) read a book/magazine,  c) put on some music to pass the time, or c) if you’re brave enough to bring a laptop through the pain-in-the-ass security, watch a movie. It's such an American attitude, but you know when you sit next to a stranger for X number of hours in a confined space you feel the same way and I don’t think you can get more ‘confined space’ than being in a room full of seated strangers flying through the air. Just sayin.

So, you guessed it. I sat next to a chatty cathy who came in the form of  a U.S. army soldier. I thought it was totally cool sitting next to someone who honorably serves this country. In fact, I personally told him so and thanked him.  Mr Soldier then asked "so what do you do?" I proudly told him "I sell insurance..." and before I could finish saying "...with State Farm" he crossed his two index fingers making an X at me and said "oh noooo!" as if I just grew fangs and was about to suck his blood or something. Ok soldier, I am not a vampire, I said I sell INSURANCE, calm down (but maybe you should buy a life insurance policy just in case a Vampire does kill you, your family will be taken care of, eh?). He then proceeded to try to recruit me to join the army for the rest of the thank-god-it-was-short flight. I politely declined his offer to join the army and stressed the point that I’m a single mother. Phew, off the hook.

My next flight (gosh darn connections) was just as 'entertaining'. I fell into a peaceful sleep and dreamt I lived in Italy. It was a beautiful place where man after man proposed in the market place. Everywhere you went to smelt of delicious Italian food. It was so scenic and beautiful, I never wanted to leave. Oh wait, that wasn't a dream, that was the chatty Cathy sitting behind me (loudly)re-living her glory days to this poor Asian guy seated next to her who didn't even speak English. And try as I might (which involved a lot of might) I couldn’t fall asleep to pass the time of the two hour flight. It's funny how you feel so involved in a conversation in which you are absolutely not a part of what so ever, but sort of are because you (and everyone else on the plane trying to sleep/read/etc) can hear everything. Note to self, MAKE SURE TO HAVE MUSIC DOWNLOADED ON MY PHONE AND BRING EAR BUDS NEXT TIME.

Let's move on to ground transportation. I understand that 7:00am is early for human beings and that one may be a little brain scattered at that time of day (I certainly am) but what I experienced Friday morning takes “brain scattered” to a whole new level. Granted, I may be partially to blame for what was to be one of the most ‘interesting’ events that would occur during my trip adventure to/in Virginia, but (I think) it’s worthwhile share the details. Everything is a little hazy, but I will do my best to reenact what happened to me that cold Friday morning.

I don’t know how many of you reading this are from Virginia, or anywhere around the Washington DC area, but if you are… you know how much of a heartless bitch traffic is there. My sister and I are in the car, and might I point out that SHE is the driver, going down 267 to avoid I-495. Things are going peachy, my GPS is instructing us with directions, my sister and I are catching up, life is good, right? GPS chimes in telling us to get off on an exit. Hmm, ok GPS. I’ve trusted you in the past, I will trust you again. My sister gets off on the exit while I am looking at the Route on the GPS to make sure it’s going to bring us to our intended destination (we weren't aware that we needed to get off on an exit so soon). All of a sudden the cars breaks are screeching, my sister is veering the car violently to the right, and before I know it we’ve driven through a barrier. Thats right, a barrier. I guess that means we were NOT supposed to go through that exit. I must say two things 1) that barrier was pretty worthless, they should really do a better job of constructing barriers 2) WHY THE HELL DID YOU DRIVE THROUGH SAID BARRIER, SISTER? As your husband put it when you asked what kind of barrier it was, I must concur, “the kind that you’re NOT supposed to drive through even if the GPS tells you to”. Lesson learned. I’m not going to lie though, that exit put us on an access ramp that skipped us through at least forty minutes of traffic. Woo Woo.

I traveled, I saw, I conquered.

 And I got to sit on a CUSHY nice big airplane (as opposed to the small jet I had to walk outside to get on -in the bitter cold- on my way to washington. But hey, i'm not complaining, gotta respect air transportation) that had personal TV’s for every person and I watched House during the return flight home. I guess the Travel God decided to have mercy on me. Untill next time...