“We would have sent you home,” said Teresa, our hostess. “It was freezing up there, there was new snow. You made the right choice to stay in bed.”
It was a painful choice, though, one wrapped in self pity and despair. I had a window of relief from whatever flu I’ve picked up, just enough time to surface for dinner, and then, I awoke again sticky and exhausted after ten or twelve hours of muddy sleep.
I look out the window at toffee colored cows, grazing high up in a bright green meadow. I sleep. I wake, the shadow of a hawk skates across the grass. There is a muffled sound of people moving around in the room above mine, a phone call to my husband, my voice broken with frustration, he tries to smooth my feathers. The wind blows through leggy white flowers. Housekeeping sneaks in and folds the bedding while I sit in the dining room eating breakfast, dizzy and weak. Back in my room I find they have taken away my tea cups but replaced the tiny bottles of shampoo.
I want to take pictures of my intent — my rain gear hanging on the coat hooks, my boots set out with woolly socks, my long underwear, all ready for an early morning start, all ignored because I gave in to my complaining body. My day pack holds a hat and gloves, a fully charged camera battery, an extra flash card for the camera, but like me, it has not moved. We are both luggage, inanimate, waiting.
Four nights in Austria and all I have is a haiku.
Toffee colored cows
graze high up in the meadow.
Wings, black on green grass.
Now, you tell me about the time you lost a trip to… something.
I was all packed up and ready for an early start for Prague. It was going to be my last hurrah, the last travel I’d do until after I gave birth. And then, inexplicably, my water broke in the middle of the night, months too early.
I think we all lose trips to…something at one point of another. But then you find a reason to go back.
Erin and I were very excited to go on a diving trip to Palau this past January 7. Flights and hotels booked. On New Years Eve, we had some friends over to celebrate, and in my haste to finish preparations before they arrived, I cracked my head on a kitchen cabinet, requiring stitches, and ending our trip before we could even end 2010.
Luckily, we had time to cancel everything with no monetary loss–and the entire trip to and from the ER for stiches took less than two hours–but we still haven’t found time to rebook our trip to Palau…
when I was young, very naive and knew nothing about travelling, I booked myself a 2-month stay in Panama. I had a friend there who would host me, therefore making such a long stay possible. I hated my job at the time, and I had saved for about a year for this trip. Anyway, I made it from my country to London, as I had booked this leg of the journey seperately because it was cheaper, but when I went to check in at London Heathrow, I was not allowed to board the plane because my flight transited through a US airport and I didn’t know that I needed to get a transit visa!!! There was no way to get it quickly, so I could just go home, feeling like a complete idiot.
This wound is still raw – less than 2 months old. We had planned for some time a long wished for trip to New Orleans for Jazz Fest. We were meeting friends and were looking forward to several days of fun, sun, outstanding music & outrageous food. The night before we left I felt the beginning of a sore throat. I thought, “I’m not happy about having a cold, but I’ll just tough it out.” It wasn’t a cold. It was fever & chills & no appetite & 5 days in New Orleans mostly spent in bed. I did manage to drag my sorry carcass to Jazz Fest anyway but I missed Tom Jones. And dinner at Commanders Palace.