My Own Odessey

I now write from the United States of America. I’ve been in said place for the past four days, and that in many ways that is how long it is taking for both the jetlag and elation to wear off. Getting to America from The America reminded me a lot of Odysseus and a little story called The Odessey. In now way was this a reference for my excitement about Christopher Nolan’s newest inbound movie.

You see fellow stalwarts of finely crafted stories, I had lived in Japan for 11 years, and that’s how long it took for the Iliad to wrap up. Then it took Odysseus another 10 years to get home. Wouldn’t you know, that’s how long it felt to get back to the motherland. It wasn’t 10 years though, but a new personal record of travel time at 38 hours.

Everything seemed to be going well until the delays began happening. Once the airline found out that they could spark the biggest reaction from their customers by making them stuck at an airport even longer, it became all the rage and American Airlines was there to lead the charge. With my luck, all of my flights were on American Airlines.

One of my stops was in Los Angeles, or LAX. Although stopping in California before the delayed flight to O’Hare was inconvenient, LAX proved to be a pleasant airport. My contempt for travel is still Chicago.

My trans-Pacific flight was 10 hours long, and throughout my entire travel I think I slept maybe an hour at a time, but not more than that. This made for long bouts of staying awake and enduring my fate of being stuck in an economy-sized seat at 41,000 feet in the air. We dodged a storm which only added to our trip distance. I made friends with the people around me and they became my companions. I never seen so many Ohtani jerseys in one place outside of Dodger Stadium.

While in LAX, I bought some food and felt sad that it was $33.50 for a parfait yogurt, chicken wrap, and two bottles of water. Then I felt happy that it was so much because of the exchange rate, and then I remembered I wasn’t in Australia anymore. Then I became sad again. Jacked up airport costs were a thing back in my life.

I’ll take it though. I’m back in Wisconsin. Anything beats the ship, and it reminds me of that Jocko clip talking about BUD/S. So you had to do a few pushups. So I had to sit in an uncomfortable position. It is one of the same. I eventually made it home and have been very busy since touching down.

The first order of action was to get a phone number. Then transfer everything such as my bank account addresses and letting everyone know what my new address was. After that I renewed my driver’s license, established ultility setup, switched my insurance region, and finally the most expensive move, I bought my car. Originally I wanted to be selfish and get a pickup truck, but thought otherwise and will get a Toyota Highlander instead. This will allow Mrs. Rastall to get a car that she wants more than buying a car that she’d “have” to get.