Off The Ground

July 24, 2015

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I’ve always loved the feeling of being in an airport, sometimes not the airports themselves — but more so the mix of emotions that they bring me. This morning as I arrived at the airport, I was nervous, scared, excited and happy - until I found out I couldn’t board my plane because I didn’t get a Visa beforehand. Please lets note that this was on United for giving me false information.

Literally not knowing what to do - since the whole purpose of this trip was mainly to end up in Tokyo for August, I was lucky enough to come across an awesome agent that hooked me up with another same day flight and keeping the rest of my itinerary unchanged for no extra cost.

My original flight's time was 11:05am, and it was already 10:50am by the time I had figure all this out, so there was no way I was going to even make the original flight if they were able to exempt me somehow.

So I ended up changing to the 3:10pm flight - knowing that I would have to rush all the way back into the city to go to the embassy for my Visa. By 12:19pm, I was finally able to turn my paperwork in. I was told that it would take about 30 minutes but I ended up getting it at 12:40pm - which gave me just enough time to make it back to the airport by 2pm for check in. It seriously couldn’t have been any closer and even when I boarded the plane, the flight attendant said that I was super lucky since these Visas usually take up to 5 hours to issue.

It’s funny that all this happened, since from the beginning, I sort of had a feeling something was going to go wrong, but I went with it anyway. I remember even texting my girlfriend Sandra at one point and she was seriously anxious I wasn’t going to make it... There I was, innocently saying “yeah, living on the edge *insert smirking emoji*” without even realizing what was to come. When I finally made it through security and to my gate, I remember saying, "living on the edge really makes you appreciate every thing."

I couldn’t have made it without the awesome agent, the cab driver who drove me to the city and waited 2 hours to drive me back to the airport. I even got on a security line that didn’t require me to take off my shoes or laptop out of my bag (since when did they started doing this?).

While being on the plane for the past 16 hours or so non-stop, I got to eat, nap, think, and even watched a few movies. One of the movies that really stood out to me was Boyhood. “You know how some people say ‘seize the moment’? What if the moment seizes us?

It’s a great question to think about, and one that I’ve been thinking about this whole entire summer.

I guess, I still haven’t really figured out what I want to do yet — but so far, I feel like some of the experiences and people that I’ve met this summer have really inspired me to go and let the moment seizes me. Here I am, off the ground again for the second time this year traveling internationally, this time by myself.

So far, the Marine guy sitting in my row invited me to come to Boston to let his son take me out for dinner and a Vietnamese lady that offered to teach me more Vietnamese on this flight.

Dress: Reformation
Shoes: Chanel Espadrilles

Photos by Sandra L.