Miami to San Jose

Hanging with Jarda was a nice relaxing transition day. Friday night was filled with pilsner urquell, shots of the homebrewed Czech liquor – Slivo, massive amounts of Chinese food and stories from the past year. Despite a soggy morning on Saturday, things warmed up by lunch time and allowed us the opportunity to hop in the car, head to the beach and eat lunch at the Diplomat resort inches from the sand and ocean. The couple of frozen margaritas necessitated a post lunch nap, then shower to wake up and continue on the second leg of my journey. Miami airport was jam packed with people, and as it is one of the major hub cities for American Airlines, my check in line was infinite. As the sole gringo standing in line I was surrounded with the Spanish language, which it has become my goal to become conversational by the end of my 75 days. Yet here I was reminded how challenging that goal will be to reach. Despite an introductory Spanish class in DC, and the highly touted language CD’s of Michel Thomas, I can only comprehend about a third of what is being said.

At the end of the check-in line, I was told to bring my backpack over to the x-ray screening machine, as I dropped my bag on a cart of a young woman who was toting it to the machine, I got a strange feeling. She smiled and said “you’re all set sir.” And with that she turned and pushed my bag off around a security wall. Still toting that uneasy feeling, I turned my attention to finding my gate, which naturally is in the farthest possible wing of the airport. After a hike around Miami International, I finally settled into my aisle seat on a packed plane, that actually had the one open seat on the plane next to me…the strange uneasiness was forgotten and I smiled at my unusual luck. After an uneventful flight we touched down in San Jose, and after breezing through immigration and customs I stood at the baggage claim…and that uneasy feeling surfaced again. There is something about my luck with baggage claims…I always seem to be one of the last 10 people waiting for their bag. So I stood, watched and waited; as everyone grabbed their luggage…the first wave of bags, then the second…by the time the third and final wave of bags came out it was down to the last few unlucky souls. And as luck would have it, my bag never came out of that luggage chute. So all of my clothes, toiletries, summer reading, sandals and sneakers were still chilling in Miami; while I stood at the American Airlines customer service center and calmly filled out the claim. Remembering that the key to enjoying your travel experience is to let all problems just slide off you back, and deal with them calmly and with a positive attitude.