Planes, Trains & Automobiles… but no boats :(

I’m sitting in LAX right now, working on killing my 8-hour layover, and marvelling at some of the little things I’d forgotten about:

English. Everywhere. Customs, Starbucks, the adorable twins chasing each other around the terminal, the girl sitting beside me yakking on her cell phone — it’s ALL in English, and I can understand every. single. word. (Haven’t decided if this is a plus or a minus yet…)

Climate controlled living. There are no bugs. No heat. No humidity. I am a perfectly maintained bodily temperature, and have not a creature-comfort-complaint in sight. Contrast this to last night on Brio, when we were sweltering in the humidity that just wouldn’t go away, swimming in 95% DEET and mosquito coils and every other bug-preventing trick we could think of, and it’s all a little… sterile, actually.

Wifi. There is Wifi EVERYWHERE. On the plane, in the terminal, in the restaurants, in Starbucks, in the bathrooms, on the bus that takes you to the way-out terminal that Murphy’s law says your flight will always be flying out of… there is fast, free, wifi. And it’s so fast it’s making my head spin. This might only be appreciable (good word, right??) if you’ve spent 6 months hoping and praying that your little internet-sticky thing will give you a green light and keep working long enough for you to check emails and buy some more internet time… or hunting down restaurants like mad-men with rapid-fire questions (“do you have wifi? how about power? ohh, food too? bonus :P”) but for the moment it’s making my life 🙂

Lack of food fears. I just ate a bowl of chili, replete with chicken and ground beef and cheese and all sorts of possibly-perishable foods that I’ve been afraid to eat too readily for the last 6 months… and I have ZERO fear of waking up with ‘a bad stomach’ (code for ‘bring on the Imodium’) tomorrow. I know, I know, TMI Leah, but seriously… if you’d experienced as much food poisoning as we have this winter, you’d be fist-pumping airport Chili too 😉

No Jon. After 6 months of sharing our 33′ little space, literally spending 24 of every 24 hours together, wracking up “boat-relationship months” (which I think we’ve all agreed are like dog years — every year you live on a boat with your significant other is like 7 land-years), it’s really strange to not have him by my side…

Marina Chiapas

Especially when I think that at 3 am this morning we were busily caulking windows shut (to make sure there are no leaks while we’re gone), pouring oil in the toilet (it makes an *amazing* difference for the pump), dumping bleach in open buckets (we’ll see if this works — supposedly it’ll cut down the amount of mold growth we get), bundling up the last bits of rice and beans and yogurt for Juan to take home (can’t leave any of that stuff behind), stuffing electronics in the oven (our equivalent of lightning-insurance) and trying to not forget the garbage inside the boat (that was last year’s mistake)… to now be here without him is just… strange.

But that’s what we signed up for when we picked an international marriage and a winter of weekends instead of a 9-5 career life, so I’m going to focus on the positives (all the covers to myself! less Shakira on repeat! …hmm, that’s all I’ve got actually) and keep looking forward. Soon enough we’ll be living together, planning next Winter’s adventures, and this little interlude will be just a fuzzy memory.

Until then… I may just go have another bowl of Chili 🙂


Comments

Planes, Trains & Automobiles… but no boats :( — 4 Comments

  1. Hey there!
    We’ve been following your blog and I love reading your musings. We heard about you from the folks aboard Que Linda. We’re another young married couple cruising around, heading/hurrying to El Salvador now. Things are starting to look a bit suspicious off of the Gulf of Tehuantepec…yikes! Anyway, I was just wondering if you’re planning to head South when you come back next winter? I’m not sure what our plans are yet, but I think we plan to hang out in El Salvador for awhile…then maybe Panama…then maybe Colombia and Costa Rica? Who knows. Anyway, if we’re ever in the same cruising grounds it would be great to meet up!

    Best,
    Harmony

    • Hey Harmony!

      This is really funny because I just read your blog for the first time today, and thought “MAN I need to email these people!”, then logged in to our blog (which has been neglected since we left the boat… funny how that goes) and realized that YOU had already emailed me! 🙂 Very cool. I’ve been reading your blog for the last hour and all I keep thinking is how it’s too bad we missed you this year, and how I hope we see you next season! We’re coming back after Christmas and are planning a similar route — through the Canal, then we’ll see 😀 When are you guys planning to head back? Where are you based for the summer? LOVE your blog!!

      Leah 🙂

  2. Welcome back Leah
    I have been following your great adventures and I have loved to hear from you. Yes I agree living on a boat you really get to know your other half pretty well and it’s a test! If you survived that, you have a good marriage. Are you on your way back to Maine or Canada? Anyway I hope we can grab a cup of coffee somewhere soon. My daughter is getting married in August…so I’ve been busy preparing that but not too busy yet.
    You are a great writer and welcome back to civilization. I have been all over the world and getting back to the USA is most of the time a treat…can be tough though. I am sure you miss Jon when you have been together 24/7 for 7 years like you say.

    • Thank you so much Jeanne! I would love to grab coffee with you and catch up again! I will be in Vancouver for the summer, while my visa finished processing — but hope to move to Maine in September 🙂 Congratulations to your daughter, and have fun with the preparations!!

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