Where in the World?

Summary of a fantastic day (at least for me!):

Awake at 6:00 a.m. to catch the sunrise on the ocean and do a little bit of photography. Definitely worth the early rise.

Back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Wonderful breakfast of fresh cantelope, eggs over medium, coffee, fresh baked muffins, and yogurt.

Great company.

11 mile bike ride along the ocean.

Late lunch of freshly made bouillabaisse with saffron, wheat toast and a garden salad.

Driving to Portland, Maine for a coffee and a lucious all natural burger at Mimi’s downtown.

Watching the movie called “2 Days in Paris.”

Sitting on the porch watching the almost full moon casting light on the ocean waves.

Talking late into the night with my new friends Al, Betsy and Erica’s mom, Marge while sipping some brandy. The topic was travel and there was one interesting story after another.

Falling asleep exhausted after a day of rest, relaxation and fun.

Michael

As I listen to the ocean waves tonight, I find them completely relaxing. Friday was more busy than the previous week combined. It was quite a contrast to the day I had today, which was basically sleeping late and watching the ocean.

I’m up in Biddeford, Maine this weekend for some R&R. The house I’m staying at is right on the ocean. I only have to walk about 30 yards to reach the water. It’s quite beautiful.

It is vital that we make time for ourselves after busy, stressful days or weeks. The balance is important and vital to regain our energy, stability and of course our attitude. The only people that we can count on to pamper us is ourselves.

So, take time off periodically and regularly. Do something fun. Have a rest. Play. Laugh. Talk with friends.

Have a great day!

Michael

As the community developed from the shared travel mishaps on March 16th and 17th, many people began to talk to each other. Obviously, a very common question was “what do you do?” I had some interesting conversations with a gentleman from New Hampshire. He had traveled all over the world averaging 120,000 miles/year in his consulting business.

We talked a lot about where we had traveled. I was quite intrigued to learn that he had traveled to 77 countries. That was exactly 7 times more than me, so I was completely fascinated and asked a lot of questions. As my friends can attest to, I can be quite curious and don’t mind asking tons of questions.

I have a personal goal of visiting 100 countries before I die. Since I’ve only been to 11 so far, I’m working on ways to get to more. This gentleman had a lot of good tips for places to go. But I was mostly interested in the perspective that he had gained by visiting and meeting all of these different cultures.

Our world is full of richness and diversity. I would like to experience as much as I possibly can as I learn something from most people I meet.

I experienced the following lessons on this trip:

1. You never know what’s inside someone until you talk with them.
2. It doesn’t take much to develop a community.
3. Friends can appear out of nowhere.
4. Most people want to have fun regardless of their circumstance.
5. My patience has increased over the years.
6. It’s becoming easier for me to “go with the flow.”
7. Don’t let someone else’s “baggage” be an excuse to be unhappy.

I can’t wait for the next adventure. It’s probably just around the corner.

Have a great day!

Michael

Flying back from Frankfurt turned into quite an adventure. The first problem was that our 747 encountered a technical malfunction before take off. Translation – technical malfunction means jet fuel leaking out of the plane.

We waited two hours for another 747 from Los Angeles to land. Luggage and passengers were safely moved to the new plane. After a 7 ½ hour flight we neared Boston only to be told that there was snowy weather, so we flew in a holding pattern for 30 minutes while ground crews cleared the runway.

The pilot began the approach to land. Around 1800 foot elevation, the captain aborted the landing with the engines gunning hard. Quite an interesting experience! The captain put us in another holding pattern as the ground crews tried to clear the runway of snow and put down a chemical to increase the braking coefficient, which was too low on the first attempt.

After flying in circles for another 45 minutes, Boston airport officially shut down and we were directed to Bangor, Maine. The airport is small there except for the exceptionally long runway on the adjoining Air Force base. Several other flights were directed here as Boston was still closed. We were to wait on the plane until we could fly back to Boston.

Unfortunately, the flight crew was informed that they had reached their flying limit for a 24 hour period. So, the plan was for us to wait on the tarmac until they could fly a fresh crew up from Boston to pilot the 747. The new crew never arrived as Boston Logan Airport never re-opened.

We sat on the plane for another hour and then we were herded into a large waiting room in the Bangor Airport to wait for our luggage to be unloaded. That took 45 minutes. Next was a quick run through customs, then find our luggage and get on a bus to the Fairfield Inn. I had reserved a room three hours early. Overall I had been up for 25 hours and 5 minutes. It felt like 26 hours!

I kept my spirits up by laughing at the entire situation. It was a much better choice then what others were making, but generally most people on the flight were upbeat which was great. A kind of camaraderie happened since we were all sharing the saga, which is good since we felt like we had been packed into a can of sardines.