Travelogue – Homesick

I’m tired.  It isn’t jet lag or a hangover or lack of sleep.  I’m just tired – tired of sleeping in foreign beds, tired of being in unfamiliar terrain, tired of feeling like I’m connected to my normal life by a long tether.  I’m ready to pull that tether and reel myself home; ready to go back to dealing with chores, crazy Kamikaze children, and chicken little-esque panics over issues that take moments to right (I’m not specifying which front that comes from for fear of incrimination) – ready to re-immerse myself in my familiar routines and environs.

In truth this week has been going relatively smoothly.  The training course has been informative and useful.  My colleague has been much more tolerant and tolerable than I would have expected in such close quarters (though apparently he has been spending half of most nights beating me with fancy pillows to stifle my snoring).  We managed to catch a couple shows while in NYC … ok movies – we saw A-Team and Get Him to the Greek.  The former was surprisingly well conceived given the premise, and the latter was ridiculously funny (though they put some of the funniest bits in the trailers which sort of ruins them).  Besides that and the happy hour earlier in the week, we played our time here pretty low key, which I was perfectly happy with.

I can say with confidence that I will never stay at the hotel in which we stayed this week ever again.  The room, with 2 bed rather than one, was about half the square footage of the place I stayed in while in San Francisco and it cost almost twice as much.  The room service pricing was nuts and the service itself spotty.  Their menu is completely in Italian (since the cuisine is as such), but if you read them the Italian names for the dishes, they are confused – they only recognize them by the English descriptions.  They charge $3 for an 8 oz. soda and no food item is less than $10.  And they will forget to ask appropriate questions regarding ordered items as well as forget to bring some of them (though I assume that we were charged for them anyway).  While I avoided as much as possible eating food at the hotel in San Fran, when I did the service at least was comparable to what I’d expect of such a hotel.

Anyway, as I said before – I’m tired.  I’m tired of sitting in training sessions (there is only so much sitting still and listening one can do).  I’m ready to take that quiet, smooth train-ride home.  I’m glad that my company was willing to send me globe-trotting in the name of education and networking (though I feel I haven’t been very successful at the latter), but I’m ready not to travel for work again for at least a few months.  I’m ready to stop living out of a suitcase and go back to living out of laundry baskets.  I’m ready to be able to consider going places more than a few blocks or a transit line away.  I’m ready to drive my car again.  I’m ready to stop carrying bags everywhere and instead go back to carrying children everywhere.  I’m ready to have access to a refrigerator and a microwave and a toaster and a stove, none of which have motion-sensored food that I need to eat with plastic utensils.  The journey was good, but I’m ready to be at the end of it.

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