Finally traveling to my dream destination has been one of the highlights of my life these past few years. Behold Thailand; 20 hours of travel time; one boyfriend with a fear of flying, and few time zones later, I made it there. Precisely, during Southeast Asia’s rainy season, we arrived to our hotel in Bangkok, our first stop in our tour of the country. Thailand is like Miami in that there will be short bouts of massive downpours throughout the day and then a blazing sun infiltrates the sky like clockwork shortly after.

This had been my longest trip yet – in my wanderlusting adventures. We connected from JFK to Dubai, and the 12 hours spent on the plane were not as painful as I had imagined. Emirates fed us every two hours as if we were toddlers ready for our next meal. I awoke from a semi-conscious slumber to eat Emirates’ version of D’Giorno pizza. Not that I’m a fan of D’Giorno pizza or ever buy it at home, but there was something so comforting about being given a hot pizza, in complete darkness, in a cute little pizza box for one. The free wine and beer didn’t hurt either; it aided in the passage of time.
On the return trip home – everything changed. With the 4 security checkpoints in Dubai’s airport, I took off my shoes twice, they scanned me for weapons and metals at least three different instances and they checked the photos on my Cannon camera. Odd! All this securing made the plan late by 3 hours. Where was my pleasant flight experience? What happened to me feeling like a coddled toddler? Sitting on the aisle, I was constantly woken up by the abrupt stewardesses bumping my arms or legs as they hastily tended to passengers. Instead of 12 hours to JFK the flight was close to 15 – big difference! Although my boyfriend and I kept getting up every few hours to stretch and stimulate circulation in our limbs, when we got home, we both noticed are ankles were so swollen they had become cankles. Mine were bruised. I was shocked. Where did these old lady legs come from? I had to take a sleeping pill to forget about the situation and woke up the next day at 4:15pm. One week later and I’m still feeling the effects of the trip. I sleep two to three hours max a night and feel drowsy around 3pm daily. What fresh Hell is this? I was only gone for 10 days. How long will it take to adjust to New York time? This is some severe jet lag, man!