LAX

 Social media is full of pictures of other people’s holidays. In truth, vicarious travel is my favourite. You don’t have to spend hours trapped in a metal box at 36000 ft and suffer the panic inducing security checks or freak out the moment you step off the plane and feel truly lost. There’s no dehydration, constipation, airplane cough or time difference. The pictures only tell you the best. Some captions hint at difficulty but you can flick through those. 

The story, however, is in the conflict: The moments people pushed through fear, anxiety or trepidation to go somewhere new. A holiday is the ultimate good news story.

My Grumpy Old Woman travel blog is back for another two weeks of random thoughts on a place I’ve never been before. Of course, I will also post pictures for my friends that don’t want to delve deeper into the conflict but if you want words too, you are in the right place. We flew into LAX which seems to have been contrarily named as the airport was full of the usual rules and rigidity, albeit with a security guard who was amused at how thin our passports were. 

The Long Suffering Husband has a big birthday coming up. How this has happened is a mystery to us all. Sixty sounds ancient and in no way reflects his mental age. He wanted to be in San Francisco on the day, so we booked a trip that involved complicated packing. Two cities, a beach and a walking holiday in 15 days. Trust me, that’s a lot of shoes. 

Weirdly, I get very anxious going through security. Luckily, with being nearly 60 comes an ability to only hear half of what is said. This is a skill the LSH has practised for years but through security at Heathrow he put it to extreme comic effect, which got me through the gates with my breathing under control. 

“Can you lift your jumper up, Sir?”

It was a simple request that surprised everyone when the LSH, who was mirroring the shadow picture started to do star jumps. Laughter really is the best medicine. 

“I thought he said, ‘jump up’,” he said slightly embarrassed but relieved that I was more relaxed.

Sometimes you arrive in a new place and immediately feel at home. The language might be different but there’s a sense that it feels right. I’ve felt this in two places: Greece and Vienna. I was particularly surprised in Greece because even the letters are different. You would have thought that America would feel similarly familiar. They speak the same language and you’ve seen most of it on film, however, this place baffles me. I feel alien. A good night’s sleep and some adventures the next day should help. In the meantime, there’s a sea lion barking outside my bedroom window and a woman is in the bar downstairs telling her boyfriend how she had to book an expensive massage to see the sunset on a holiday in Greece because at certain times of the year the sun sets in the East there.