Those of you who know and love me, family, colleagues, friends and fellow travelers, I hope will say I possess several virtues. Without opening that debate, one virtue we can all agree I do not possess is patience.
Travel is by definition is full of potholes and road bumps (pun intended). Months of careful planning and arrangement can be thrown askew by a delayed flight or an attraction closed for renovations. The usual patience platitudes of 'go with the flow' and ' it is what it is' has in the past sent me into a fit of rage. Friends, I am a control freak.
Admitting you are a control freak is one thing. Learning to let go over the anxiety and angst over that which you can not change is another. These lessons have come via a Dublin flight delayed 6 hours at Heathrow due to fog. Waiting for the next train in the Metro an announcement in French that obviously meant the trains were stopped indefinitely and to trudge out into the dark raining night with hundreds of work day weary Parisians. And to be told in Savannah, 'Good news! We've upgraded your room. Bad news Pauly Shore stayed in it last night and he sort of trashed it. Head out to dinner for a few hours... should be ready by then". And a bunch of other times that just run together in the life of a traveler. And I am 100% sure each and every time I was at least slightly put out.
What I failed to realize is every detour off the plan gave me another unexpected experience. The 6 hours spent at Heathrow resulted in the to this day hotly contested Scrabble marathon. Trudging down the rainy Parisian boulevard, the street lights were ringed in a heavenly golden halo. And Pauly Shore? Well nothing, it was Pauly Shore.
Today, after four hours on the tarmac at Metro airport where we not only were the wings deiced once we waited so long they had to be deiced a second time...and without leaving the gate we had to refuel. The Pam I know and love would have been on her phone frantically checking weather and estimated arrival times, calculating if we could still make our 10 am arrival. It quickly became obvious the answer was 'nope'. So I settled in and watched all the movies over the last few months I didn't take the time to see. Played a trivia game and practiced my Spanish in anticipation of my final destination.
Travel and life itself are a series of little pearl moments strung together like a necklace. Instead of grabbing breakfast and then departing at 9:45am, I found myself at 10:30am in a 10 person deep line at the transfer desk...waiting just outside the roped area was a gentleman and his Chihuahua. I smiled as I got into the queue and my smile was returned. As the line suddenly stopped I found myself right next to the dog. I asked if it was okay to pet her and he nodded. I spent the next five minutes instead of fuming in line, cuddling and playing with that little dog. As the line started to move I told them both what a pleasure it was to meet them, Now almost 3 hours after my connecting flight jetted off without me, I sit in Amnsterdam Schipol airport with a Spanish family and a nice Ukrainian man at a ING charging station. Little moments.
The rest of my travel day was fairly uneventful. I had a lovely conversation in Spanish with our transfers driver (again thank you Sra. Horning-Cline). He was so happy to have me speak to him in his native language, he gave us an impromptu tour of the Grand Via as we arrived at our final Madrid destination. Tapas for dinner (my absolute favorite) and a fairly early bedtime. Tomorrow I will report about Spain's capital Madrid.
One little postscript. Some of my new found Zen comes from my friend Tatiana. Tatiana and I on paper couldn't be more different, and I have always admired her musical talent. She is also an extremely grounded person and has been coaching me on meditation. While I wouldn't say I am any where near guru state, I think her lessons if not have made me change my old ways, at least acknowledge there are other ways. You may want to try it as well.
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