And here I go…..

Here I am, I guess. At this point a week ago I thought I would be on a flight to Munich, moving on to Tel Aviv. Instead I am on a flight from Seattle to Chicago, to visit family. I guess plans change.

Last Saturday I woke up to a series of notifications on my phone that the United States and Iran had gone to war. I guess Israel decided they would rather have another war than me as a tourist.

I’m somewhat ambivalent about the war itself, other than its disruption of my travel plans, which seems rather petty. War is fine, unless it interferes with my flights.

After all, the atrocities of the current regime in Iran are pretty well documented, and the crackdown on protests there was merely a matter of weeks ago. If anyone deserves to go, it’s them. Of course, civilians are the ones who pay the highest toll, though as just another person, I’m not really sure what I personally can do about that. Even if I did have feelings about the war, it;’s not like our current government would listen to them.

Instead I am being flexible, I was able to cancel the flight plans to Israel, the refund came through this morning, and instead I’m going to visit family in the Midwest, where i had planned to visit anyhow, just in like May or June, not early March. Chicago March can be brutal, having lived through many of them the first 35 years of my life.

Packing for this trip has been a bit slapdash. Today, I will be arriving in 60 degree weather and thunderstorms, but by next weekend, when I leave, snow is expected. How do I pack for this wile still keeping myself restricted to one carry on piece of luggage?

Flight Issues

Before getting off the ground, it looks like I will be flying into some thunderstorms in Chicago, delaying my flight by about an hour and a half. Sort of brings up memories of my last trip to the Midwest last year, where my flight got delayed by a day and a half, and I ended up having to take a bus to get to my final destination. This flight, however, seems to be going smother, as we have gotten off the ground within two hours of when we intended to.

Being Flexible

In the end, I guess it pays to be flexible with plans. My time from work had already been taken off when the whole agenda got thrown off by a war. However, rather than just sitting around and moping about how my plans have been derailed, I got a different plan. And that’s the benefit of being flexible, and not set on an agenda with traveling.