Final Leg of the Trip

I’m back in Boston now – after an epic 36 hour journey from Hanoi.  I started on Asiana Airlines – and did a stopover in Seoul first.   (See last post about a visit to Gyeongbokgung Palace.)  From there we traveled on to LAX – where I was reunited briefly with my luggage, and reacquainted with domestic airlines.  USAirways shares a domestic terminal with Southwest – so the entire environment was chaotic.   The flight to Charlotte was overbooked, and seating took until 15 minutes after scheduled takeoff time due to the inordinate number of rollerboards coming on board.  I had my first pizza in weeks (pineapple and cheese – good, but not as good as some stir fried noodles with veggies.)  The flight from Charlotte, scheduled to leave at 10:15 was overbooked – but got off on time, and we arrived in Boston at 12:15am this (Sunday) morning.

When I say me, I mean me and the other passengers.  No sign of my luggage when the baggage handlers stopped the carousel and slammed down the exterior gate – so I couldn’t change from my shorts (lucky I had that fleece from my Seoul adventure). The US Airways lost baggage counter was busier than you’d expect at 1am. But the US Airways folks were nice and THEY didn’t lose my luggage.  Amazing how mean and angry some of the other passengers were. I just had 2 weeks in southeast asia - so I can be 'zen' about this. 

No luggage meant heading out into the cold weather here in my shorts (new meaning for being "chill"). By 1:15 am there was a line of 12 people and no taxis in sight!   I found a place under one of those heat lamps, and thought about what a challenge this could be to the Buddhist approach.   I ended up having a great taxi ride with Sayed, who kindly invited me to sit in the front seat because I was freezing. It turns out he’s friends with Sammit, who cuts my hair.  Small world! 

The luggage came by courier today – and the popped zipper on my suitcase that prompted me to fasten it with packing tape even popped back into place.   Not much sleep last night, though – so I won’t be starting the week quite as fresh as I’d like.

I’ll have a few more posts of perspectives over the next few days. Thanks for following along and being a part of my journey.