Biting the bullet.
by sam on 02/28/2006It’s been about a year and a half since my last real vacation (diving in curacao). Sure, I took a few days off last February/March and stopped off to visit my brother in Vail, and I took a week of last July to move, which was technically vacation time (although certainly more stressful than actually being at work), but I haven’t taken a real, honest to goodness, sit on my ass, do a little scuba diving, no cellphone reception vacation in quite some time. Plus, the crazy work related travel that I had to do all last fall completely bit into my normal vacation scheduling (I usually go away in October). Needless to say, I’ve been feeling a bit…not relaxed.
So anyway, even though I’ve got a million different things going on at work, I decided about a week and a half ago to put in for vacation time. I actually had no idea what I was going to do yet, but with more school vacations coming up, plus spring rapidly approaching, I thought it would be good to just reserve some time and come up with a plan later. I’m taking the last week of march and the first week of april off, and after much consideration, and even more e-mails back and forth, I’m actually going to fly 25 hours in each direction to go visit my brother in Palau. Which is about as far away from here as you can actually get without taking a spaceship.
And I’m stuck in coach (nevermind that I have a gazillion miles – Continental has a stranglehold on the micronesia routes, and apparently you can’t upgrade if your life depends on it). This should be fun.
Actually, I’m really looking forward to everything but the flight. I’ve been to Europe a bunch of times (both for fun and for work), but I’ve never been anywhere in Asia or the South Pacific. I’ve already started reorganizing my dive equipment, making lists, and generally hopping around in a giddy mood. I have a giant world map hanging on my office wall, and I spent a good 40 minutes staring at it on Monday – granted one of my bosses was in my office with me, and we were actually having a conversation about the trip, so it wasn’t that weird, but still.
I’m excited. And the tickets are nonrefundable.