One month and a lot of flights!
If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, you know that during the last month I have been hopping from plane to plane and city to city. Below is my past itinerary and a picture to boot!
Muscat, Oman
July 5th – 10th, (4 flights: stopover in Bahrain, 5,906 miles, 14hrs 5mins flight time)
I had the great pleasure of going to Oman for work. It was an amazing experience, but more on that later!
Back to Rome
On July 11th at approximately 6:30am, I landed back in Rome and headed straight to the train into the city. I took a taxi from Ostiense station, as I had nothing left in me, after an overnight flight, that would allow me to even contemplate waiting for the bus after which I would need to walk three minutes to my house. I reached my house around 7:15am and hopped straight into the shower. After some unpacking, bagging of things that needed to stay in Rome, stuffing of suitcases and sitting on top of them, begging them to close, I was finally ready to head to work for a brief meeting/project at work.
Lucia, Fabrizio and I struggled with my heavy bags, got them in the car and headed to work. At some point, I felt like I was sleep walking. Completely in a daze, I stored my suitcases where I could and headed to a final coffee with friends, to which I was nearly an hour late to. After my frantic and massive apologies, I had to run off quickly to a meeting to record a voiceover for an introduction to an FAO online tool. The recording went well and luckily we did not have to do too many do overs. After that I headed to a quick coffee with my team and then left for the airport, sadly leaving behind my big turquoise headphones in a rush. 🙁
Rome -> Detroit
July 11th (2 flights: stopover in Amsterdam, 4,746 miles 11hrs 5mins flight time)
After this flight, which followed a seven hour flight from Bahrain, I realized that flying 18 hours in economy within a 24 hour period can be very detrimental to your health! I feel like it took two full days for the circulation in my legs to return to normal.
A series of unfortunate events
By the time I got to Amsterdam, I had been flying for nine hours, changed two time zones and went to the city center of Rome. I was exhausted mentally and physically because I barely slept due to the overnight flight. Once I arrived at the gate to board my flight to Detroit, I was told I had a standby ticket and there were no more seats. I am not sure since when $1300 bought you a standby flight, but I digress. Hearing this news I immediately burst into tears. The thought of overnighting in Amsterdam, while usually an alluring one, made me want to puke. After 15 minutes of sheer anxiety and representatives from KLM trying to calm me down, they found a seat for me. I asked three times that they checked to ensure my luggage was on the plane, since I was flying to NYC 24 hours after I landed. Needless to say, once half of the luggage came off of the plane in Detroit, I knew my bags would not be amongst the remaining.
By the time I had to deal with the airline’s loss of my bags I had no energy or fight in me. I had flow 18 hours and passed through eight time zones. I filed my claim and headed home. To make a long story short, because of the hmmmm, incompetence, of a number of employees at Delta, I had to change my flight to NYC three times in order to accommodate the huge delay in them getting my bags back to me. I will spare you the exhausting details of the experience, but Delta has duly compensated me for my inconvenience, though I still need to write a letter about the ridiculousness of the entire ordeal. And I have yet to receive my 70 Euro for the bags that I paid to check which were delayed in their arrival.
Exhausted
NYC!!!!
July 13th – July 22nd (2 flights: 1,002 miles 3hrs 42mins flight time)
What can I say, as always I had an incredibly amazing time in NYC. I partied hard and caught up with loads of friends. Celebrated two birthdays and went to sleep after sunrise too many times to count!
Orlando
July 23rd – July 26th (2 flights: 1,914 miles 5hrs 5mins flight time)
Between NYC and Orlando I had about 36 hours in Detroit. The main purpose of my trip to Orlando was to take my niece back to her family, as she spent six weeks in Detroit with my mother, her grandmother. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to entertain her on the plane and I must admit, I wanted to put a sign around my neck that said she is my niece, not my daughter, you know, just in case :-). The flight went smoothly. She was well behaved and luckily, when it was actually working, she could watch Disney shows on the screens on the flight.
In Orlando we were met with a digesting humidity. It was great to see my nephew, sister and brother in law. It always amazes me how quickly they grow up! I think the highlight of the trip was going to Sweet! By Good Golly Miss Holly. Holly is a celebrity chef and two time winner of Cupcake Wars. It is her latter credential that led us there, as the kids LOVE Cupcake Wars. The cupcakes were good, but much too sweet for my liking. My favorite by far was the cinnamon swirl. I would not suggested trying the red velvet. Quite frankly, it was so bad I contemplated asking them to give me something else as a replacement. The yogurt that I enjoyed the most was I believe, blueberry and pomegranate. It was amazing and was very refreshing to the palette. So if you are near Orlando or Jacksonville, pop in and taste, I would love to hear your thoughts, as I am not a cupcake connoisseur.
Back in Detroit
July 26th – August 1st
The main driver of my return to the US this summer was to attend my high school reunion. Firstly, I cannot believe it has been ten years, and secondly, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. No time or distance could’ve stopped me!
San Francisco
August 1st – 7th (3 flights: 4,421 miles 5hrs 5mins flight time)
Just yesterday, I booked a flight to go see my good friend in San Francisco and many other friends that live in the area. It is also going to be an opportunity for me to visit UC Berkley and UC Davis as I am planning to apply there in the fall.
In one month and two days I will have taken 13 flights, flown 17,989 miles for a grand total of 39 hours and 2 minutes in the air. Further, I will have crossed a total of 11 time zones on three different continents, five countries and eight cities!
