I haven't travelled abroad for over two years. The last time I went anywhere was in February 2020. Helsinki. Capital of Finland. I was there for a couple of days and when I returned, within a few weeks, the country was in lockdown. That was it. No more travelling. Up until that point I had been merrily flying around the world and you can read all about it by clicking on any of the links on the right hand side of this page.
When the travelling stopped I was wondering how I would react to not whizzing around the world. I thought I'd be crawling up the walls, but I soon realised that it didn't bother me. This might have been because, throughout the lockdown, I spent an inordinate amount of time cycling and cooking and watching movies on Prime and Netflix. In fact, my entire 'lockdown experience' is documented on this very blog and starts here. I'm still riding and watching movies, but I've taken a back seat on the cooking and that's because we're back in the office three days out of five and that's been the case for some time now. Things are back to normal, but it's taken a little longer to find myself back on the travel circuit again. Now, however, I'm back... or I will be very soon, on a flight across the Atlantic to Philadelphia and then a little west to Pittsburgh. I haven't missed travelling one bit and now find myself mildly anxious about it. My weekends have been amazing over the past few weeks. I've been riding to Oxted and then sitting outside Caffe Nero in the sunshine, chilling with a cappuccino, or sitting outside of Starbucks with a large English Breakfast tea people watching. But for the next two weeks my routine will change, there won't be any riding, unless I can find a stationary bike in the hotel gym. I say 'two weeks', it's just one, but two weekends are involved so I'm going to miss two consecutive weeks of riding. I can't say I'm happy about that, because no cycling will be combined with American food and we all know what the Americans do with their food: they take something healthy and they make it unhealthy by adding creamy sauces and goodness knows what else. Either way the end result is not good. I am, however, looking forward to meeting some of the American people and being in America, a country I love to bits and I guess that now the travelling is returning I need to reset myself and get back into travelling mode again. The problem is not the travelling, it's having to wear a mask on a plane for hours on end. If it wasn't for that I think I'd be looking forward to it more than I am at this present time. Although I'd be looking forward to it a lot more if I could cross the Atlantic like Greta Thunberg did on a catarmaran, but that's not possible and they've yet to build a bridge across the ocean so flying is the only option. It's not just masks that make the whole thing unbearable, it's the hassle associated with the reason why we're all wearing masks: Covid. And that means tests before I fly and a ridiculous app, Verifly, that simply doesn't work. I keep thinking it must be something I'm doing wrong, but I've now submitted everything and have been told I'm ready to fly, but he BA website won't allow me to check in online because it hasn't received details, presumably from Verifly, that says I've tested negative and all is fine. As a result, I've ordered an early cab as the only option left to me is to check in manually, ie in the old-fashioned manner, ie I turn up and hand over my bags to a human being and hand over all my paper documentation and so forth. I'm leaving early for that reason alone and you know what? I know already that I'm going to have a lot of grief, they're not going to believe me, they won't accept my documentation when I present it to them and it's all going to be irritating and bordering on bad temper. I'm already uptight, I'm already getting bad-tempered about it all and now, of course, because I don't drink, I've got nothing to relax me, like a large glass of Merlot.
Anyway, the taxi is due any minute. Outside, the sun is shining. Normally, I would be cycling today, on my way to a chilled out cappuccino in the sunshine down in Oxted, like last week. But that's off the agenda this week and next.
