The alarm goes off at 3:10am and we climb into the Lyft at 3:30am. We are taking Lyft to the Newark airport to begin our 27 hour door to door journey home. During our two weeks in the US, this return journey loomed in my head. Living in the moment is still out of reach.
When we left for the US, it felt like a series of logistical tests we had to pass. Get our unofficial dual nationality toddler through customs, rent a car with my Chinese license, and so on. I used to make this trip four times a year for work and never really worried about it but as my first international trip in 2.5 years and with family in tow, I was anxious. The 12 hour flight was uneventful and our toddler was amazingly well behaved. The back of the plane seats - four of us in one row - were narrow and terrible.
The Bay Area portion of the trip was filled with family and friends get togethers. Amanda starred, Elisa stood out. We visited UC Berkeley and Stanford campuses in an informal college tour for Elisa. We had a family gathering at my sister’s in Oakland and another at my brother’s in Vacaville. I felt jet lagged pretty much the entire time. I wondered if we were doing enough or too much. My sister’s house was an oasis, where Amanda would play in the living room and we could relax and visit. There was a trip to the Oakland zoo followed by In-n-Out. I vowed to eat better once the vacation was over.
Our next flight was to Orlando and Disney World. An early 5:15am wakeup and out the door at 5:30am. Disney World is really its own little world. We paid the piper and stayed in a Disney resort. We did four parks in two days. Could have easily done three days, as we missed out on a lot of the parks especially EPCOT. The second day at Disney was cold. At least it seemed cold until we got to New York.
New York had wind chills of -15F. We met up with Yang, Aidan, Lydia and my brother Matt. We still managed to brave the Brooklyn Bridge. It was damn cold. There was a long diversion where we looked for an Aunt Anne’s pretzel shop near the 911 memorial.
A lot of NY focused around food. Italian welcome dinner Friday night, crispy creme, Aunt Annie, pizza. Perhaps the best meal we had was a ramen shop near our hotel. We missed out on NY cheesecake and hotdogs. Despite the cold, we also managed to visit grand central, the met, central park, times square, st. patrick’s cathedral, and rockefeller center.
I tried not to think about the expense of the trip but that is akin to an Allio not liking ice cream. Well, the good news is the expense was dwarfed by my portfolio hit of MS stock dropping 30%.
After the 6:30hr flight from Newark to SFO, we continued with a short 14 hour flight to Beijing. Much better seats this time. I gave up on reading and rewatched the first two seasons of White Lotus. We landed as the last episode was about to start, which is just as well. Tanya was in a good place. At least it seemed like it.