Hello from D.C.!
It’s so nice to be back in the U.S. and not sitting on a plane right now. I had a lovely morning, filled with a walk with my mom, a short run, and some Bob Harper yoga. Plus, a healthy breakfast — yum!
I love coming back after a long trip away and having all my favorite foods again 🙂
Lunch consisted of a billion crackers with hummus — oh, hummus, my love, how I’ve missed you.
Plus an enormous spinach salad topped with tomato, green pepper, and tuna salad made with dijon mustard, a light laughing cow cheese wedge, and some chopped celery. Plus balsamic vinaigrette!
SO delicious and fresh — just what I wanted.
Dessert was a big sliced grapefruit 🙂 Mmmm… so juicy.
I’m just about packed up and getting ready to hit the road for the 4 to 5 hour drive back to Chapel Hill, North Carolina! As I mentioned, classes start tomorrow. Whew! Can I get a vacation from vacation?! 😉
In other news, if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll already know that traveling back from Europe yesterday was a complete debacle. First, my flight out of Venice (at 3 a.m. eastern US time) was delayed because someone randomly got off and they had to rifle through all the bags to get their luggage. We arrive in Zurich, the Swiss Air people come over the loudspeaker and say that our connections have all been guaranteed and not to worry. I literally run through 2 intensive passport checks, ANOTHER security checkpoint (yes, after coming from another plane — I loathe the Zurich airport), and finally make it to my gate 15 minutes before the flight is scheduled to leave, only to find that they have closed the doors and won’t let me and two other people on, even though they earlier assured us they would. Awesome. The United/Swiss Air staff say they have already rebooked us into business class and that I’ll be flying through Chicago to D.C. now, arriving at 9 p.m. instead of 3:30 p.m. as planned. Grrrrr. But business class would be nice, right? They then direct me back upstairs to the transfer counter. Upon arriving there, I meet very surly and rude Swiss Air staff, who say that no matter what the United/Swiss staff told us below at the gate, there’s no way in hell that we will be booked into business class. Economy, sorry, nothing else. Thanks a lot. I ask if I can have a passcode for their internet to email my mom to tell her I’m going to be 6 hours late, they refuse. So unimpressed.
Finally, a billion hours later after a 9 hour flight in which the lady in front of me has her seat reclined literally into my lap the entire freaking time, I arrive in Chicago. There is a 40 minute line for passport check. Then I wait for my bag. Then I wait at the United counter to re-check my bag. When I get to the front, I’m told that the Swiss Air staff didn’t actually bother to book me onto my connecting flight to D.C. from Chicago after all. @#($@(#$* At this point, I’m on the verge of a total meltdown. Luckily, there’s still a couple seats available or else I would have been screwed. Then, I’m told that once I leave my bag for rechecking, I have to go back out through security, take a train to another terminal, and go back through security AGAIN (for the third time that day) to get my connecting flight. Are you serious? Ugh.
My mom met me at the airport in D.C. at 9 p.m. to give me a ride home, and I was so happy to finally see her! So bummed that I didn’t get to spend my last day at home with her as planned. 🙁 Finally, at 10 p.m., 22 hours after I left my brother’s place in Vicenza, Italy, I arrived home. What a day. Although, it could have been worse. I could have been the lady that threw up in the aisle on my Zurich to Chicago flight just before we landed. Yikes. Poor thing.
Whew. Sometimes you just need to get things like this off your chest, you know? Do you guys have any travel horror stories? Lay ‘em on me!
Catch you guys tomorrow from back down in NC! I’m looking forward to getting back to normal life — stay tuned for the return of healthy recipes, quick and easy lunches and dinners, and the start of my half marathon training (posting my new training plan shortly)!
