… and messages like the ones below make all the effort worth it.
Aug 26 2017
The long way back
In the Atlanta airport I met Kyle, that is a half Irishman, half Scottish American. I should have figured out his origins by the fact that he started his day with three Bloody Mary drinks. We had a nice chat about people work ethic and mountains. I then boarded the plane and wrote one of the entries for this blog. I think I also slept a little. I can tell you for sure that time flew as well, because the time to land came quite quickly.
In Washington Dulles I had a lot of time to spend, because on the way back is when the time zone difference causes a lot of trouble. Back to Europe I was flying with United Airlines which is a more lower cost version of Lufthansa with a crappy site that did not allow me to check in and choose my own seats. So I ended up in 45 E, between a handsome Russian and a nice English woman.
I went through all the customs and flying formalities and here I was with only one bag and a lot of time on my hands. So I stopped in a bar and asked for a beer and a meal and went back to blogging. I keep hoping that when I get home I will have other subjects to write about, so I want to finish all vacation entries before I come back. Also I just do not want to risk forgetting more of the thoughts I am having now.
By the time I had to board, entries up to and including the 21st of August were already done. Then, because the movies and TV series provided by United presented no interest to me, I continued blogging. And now here I am, seven hours later, almost all entries are done. What they are missing are some pictures, maybe. But aside from that all the data is in. I have about seven hours of wait in Munich. That is where all the entries will be polished and then published on the blog. I will get home at 06:00PM, so I’ll have just enough time to take a long bath, watch Game of Thrones and console the cat for my absence. Then I will doze off to sleep and I will wake up into my routine weekend life.
It is weird how wasting so much time in airports does not feel so bad. I was expecting to get crazy bored. I guess blogging can be quite time consuming, especially the way I do it. Honestly, I doubt somebody will actually read all my crazy and boring thoughts. But who knows, maybe in some other part of the world there is a stranger or a friend stuck for hours in an airport. And they do not have a blog, or are not as passionate about writing as I am, but they are passionate about reading. So here it is, enough material to kill a few hours. You are welcome.
Aug 24 2017
The US adventure(part 14): back in Atlanta
In Kings Mountain I had a smoker room, I either booked it by mistake, or I booked it out of necessity, because there was nothing else, but the lady at the reception was so nice and did not give up until I allowed her to use some indoor aromatic spray in a desperate try to mask the burned tobacco stench. I unpacked a few minimum things and had a shower, then drifted off to sleep. This motel was next to a highway and judging by the multitude of trucks parked around it, it was a trucker hotel. As a consequence I got woken up around five or six in the morning but a few angry truck engines. But I was really tired and I went back to sleep for two more hours.
I left Kings Mountain and headed for Atlanta again. To my surprise in two hours I was there so I just parked my car into a public parking and started asking Google what more could I do in Atlanta. There were a few things on the list, but one of them, that was also recommended by some friends on Facebook was to go to the Coca-Cola museum. So I did, although the aquarium was more appealing to me, but then again how many aquariums can you visit in a lifetime? :))
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Aug 23 2017
The US adventure(part 13): beach day
For this vacation I had one beach day planned, the 23rd of August. So in the morning, I got dressed into my beach attire, checked out from the hotel and moved my ass to the beach. Parking+beach chair=45$, so if I see “free” written somewhere one more time I’ll kill somebody.
Anyway, I’ve made myself comfortable, covered my body with sunscreen and I just enjoyed a full day of doing nothing. From time to time I took a break to play in the ocean. My chair was next to the lifeguard, so I could not swim too much because apparently the rule is for the water to not go over your knee. Oh well…
It was a really relaxing day, just listening to the waves, playing in the sand and in the water. At that moment I wished I could have stayed one more day, but the plan was already done, I had to be in Kings Mountain that night and I had a 4 hour drive ahead of me.
Aug 22 2017
The US adventure(part 12): that one gesture
August 22nd is the day when I got close to the Atlantic Ocean in the South. The first city in my way was Charleston. I stopped there for a walk down the beach, a stroll through the city market and a fancy lunch. Charleston is one of the oldest cities in US and this is quite obvious from its architecture. It’s a really cozy town, with a nice pier and park and a culture of hand made things. I think this town might actually have Irish or Scotish roots, because I recognised some symbols and motives in their handiwork. I loved this city and I would have loved to stay there more, but I needed to get to Myrtle Beach. And now, this is going to turn into one of those posts you like reading on this blog, probably.
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Aug 21 2017
The US adventure(part 11): the day of the eclipse
I know these entries do not look like the ones I’ve been been getting you guys used to, but I haven’t written in a literary way for so long and this is just the warm up. Or so I hope. I just need to make a journal of these days, because this is the most awesome vacation I ever had until now.
One of the reasons I say this is because this is the first time I am on a different continent than the one I was born on. Another is that I am all alone here and I haven’t heard spoken Romanian in a week now and it feels isolating. And I love it. I love to dwell in my loneliness and enjoy the freedom given by it. I know this might seem weird, but being alone also means being unattached and there is a feeling of freedom in this that I cannot describe to you. It’s absolute, almost magical. Also, the fact that I am waking up without an alarm and deciding my itinerary every morning it’s really exciting. Sure I do have fixed points for where I have to spend the night, but how I get there it’s matter of quite random choice.
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Aug 20 2017
The US adventure(part 10): sleeping in “the hood” and flowers
Driving to the motel was easy. I had intentionally picked a motel close to the airport, because I was going to land after midnight and I did not want to drive too much to a bed or struggle with finding a parking spot for my car. The driving was the easy part. Stopping the wipers of the car, that I activated by mistake was a different matter. I tried all positions that seemed to do it, but no, the wipers were still moving once a minute. I got to the motel and I was scared again. The area looked really shady. Maybe because it was night, maybe because it looked really dirty, I really do not know. But when I was finally in my room with my bags and with my door locked, I was finally able to relax. I took a quick shower, I put on my pyjamas and that was that.
At 9 I was out the door and on my way to the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Honestly, the area did not look that shady in the morning. I drove to the garden with the wipers on, still on that weird setting that made them move once a minute. Although I took the car manual with me in the motel room, I was not able to find clear instructions on how to turn them off and the internet was nice enough to get me paranoid about the extra-sensitive rain sensor, so I was quite convinced the sensor was broken. I even asked on Facebook how to turn the damn sensor off, I even considered taking the car back, but I was 90% convinced I was doing something wrong. So, putting aside all the jokes about removing the windshield altogether, before leaving the garden, I gave it one more try. Well, more than one. I tried every combination of inert settings possible for the wipers, waiting one minute after each setting to see if they still move. And at some point, they stopped. Victory!
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