Of Travel…

I flew back from Wales last week.  The trip included an hour to the airport.  A seven or eight hour flight to Newark and then around a two hour flight home, followed by an hour long drive.

Some might consider that a long trip, but after living in Brazil, any trip that last less than a day is a short trip.

When we first moved to Brazil, we lived about an hour from the airport.  After the move to Northern Brazil we lived seven or eight hours from the airport. 

A typical trip home to the west coast included the following.

1.       Drive to the airport.  This may sound easy, but with the conditions of the roads, this could last up to eight hours, and incalculable stress.  At one time, the state of Para decided to redo their roads and began by scraping off the asphalt and smoothing the dirt roads.  This was a vast improvement over the pot-holed asphalt roads.  We had particular places where the bathrooms were more or less clean and we could eat lunch.  Usually a small fried pastry called a pastel.

2.       Once we got to Belem, where the airport was located, we found a place to stay the night.  At first it was hotels, but eventually, we ended up staying at a guest house at a Christian camp. 

3.       After a very early morning we flew SOUTH to Sao Paulo.  Yes, we were actually only a few hours flight from Miami, but our flights always went through Sao Paulo. 

4.       After a five or six hour flight we had an entire day to kill until the flight to Chicago left at ten at night.  Since we usually had a lot of luggage, airport strolls weren’t really an option.

5.       The flight to Chicago was around ten hours long.  If we were fortunate there might be a movie worth watching, or better yet some empty seats where we could lay down and try to sleep.

6.       Landing in Chicago we switched over to speaking English and waited for our afternoon flight to Oregon. 

7.       The five or six hour flight to Oregon seemed interminable.  Partially because we had already read the airline magazine cover to cover on the previous flights.

We arrived in Oregon jet-lagged and exhausted after about three days of traveling.

And that is why, for me, any trip that lasts less than a day seems like a walk in the park.