Travels

I’ve heard nightmares about travel lately, whether on the news or through friends who are getting back out there and traveling again. As most things in the world, air travel has changed since COVID and hasn’t fully recovered. I hadn’t been on a plane since the fall of 2019. While I wasn’t nervous about the flight itself, I was certainly anxious about all the flights working out.

The Birmingham airport is a dream. It’s so small, and yet typically operates so smoothly. There were practically no lines anywhere (except Chik-Fil-A which has a line no matter what time of day). But my flight was delayed by 50 minutes. This meant that I would be landing in Dallas about the time that our flight to Lima (Jess and I met in Dallas) was supposed to start boarding.

My nerves grew as the time ticked closer to our departure time and yet no plane was at our gate. At fourteen minutes to our new departure time, a plane finally arrived. I was no where near the only passenger anxious about making a connecting flight. Our pilot took off about 20 minutes after our delayed scheduled time, but it was smooth sailing and we made it to Dallas a little faster than scheduled. But of course, a gate was not yet ready for us, so I was eagerly texting with Jess going through our plan of how she was to delay the plane. Should she lay down in hysterics at the gate? Make an anonymous call that there was something wrong with the plane?

Finally, our plane arrived at a gate, and the handy American Airlines app gave me walking directions to get to the next gate. With a combination of speed walking and running, I was able to reunite with Jess just minutes before the plane started boarding. At this point, we were both relieved and decided that was going to be as stressful as our travel would get on this trip (stay tuned with your fingers crossed).

We arrived at the Lima airport at 12:30am and were greeted by kind, helpful airport staff and immigration officers. Outside, our scheduled taxi was no where to be found, but we found a friendly driver who quoted us a similar price and so we got into his car and were quickly introduced to the driving customs of a new country. (Note to self: ask what currency the quote is as we ended up paying an enormous amount, but we were delivered safely, nonetheless).

We were able to get a few hours of good sleep and are now waking up to the morning sounds of a brand new city. 

I read an article in the New York Times on Sunday that  reminded of one of the reasons we travel. It was about talking to strangers.  “Far from random human inconveniences, strangers are actually one of the richest and most important resources we have. They connect us to the community, teach us empathy, build civility and are full of surprise and potentially wonder.” I must admit that every one of my interactions yesterday, even the stressful ones were positive. From the friendly x-ray machine operator at TSA; to the plane full of people that stayed seated and let those of us with connecting flights run off; to the friendly couple I ran with who bragged about seeing their grandson playing in the new USFL league in Birmingham; to the friendly taxi driver (who yes, cheated us foreigners a bit), and the eager bell hop who welcomed us to a new city. I can’t wait to get out and meet more strangers!