It’s been a few years since I’ve traveled alone to a foreign country, and I’m not counting the United States. This morning I woke up — except I didn’t really sleep — in a foreign country. One I don’t know a whole lot about.
It’s only a 10½-hour layover before my real destination — but that’s just long enough to clear customs, find the local hop-on hop-off bus, get back to the airport, clear security, have dinner, and pause to process.
Processing…
I may be experiencing some jet lag. At least, I hope that’s what’s causing the internal swaying and the almost nauseous feeling.
Pause the processing – I just finished one of the best burgers I’ve ever had in my life.
Back to processing.
I know how to travel alone — safely and comfortably. At least, I thought I did.
Rule #1: Don’t carry your luggage around.
Fail #1: Most airports have lockers, usually in convenient places. But the lockers in this airport are all the way in Terminal 1, which is a 10-minute drive away. So I decided to carry my stuff.
Rule #2: Know where you’re going — and if you don’t, fake it!
Fail #2: I’m not sure who to blame for this one. I’d done my research early, so I hadn’t retained everything I was planning to do or where it all was. And an inaccurate app told me I was at a bus stop even when there wasn’t one. But the faking it falls completely on me. Two or three guys asked me if I needed an Uber or a taxi, and one even asked me twice — cringe. Super rookie mistake. My mom taught me this one before I started high school.
I had a lot of missteps today, and I mean a lot. None massive, nothing catastrophic, but man, did I feel slow and stupid.
But once I’d juggled my bags up to the second level of a double-decker sightseeing bus, plugged in my headphones, and felt the warm Portuguese sun on my face, it all faded away. The stress of getting there, of looking like a fool — it all melted in the sun’s glow.
Life is sometimes like that. We forget what we know. Life’s circumstances cause us to lag, to act contrary to what we’d like to do or what we know is right — especially when we choose to live and make our choices outside of His sunlight.
But most of it can wash away when we enter His presence and His peace, as we bask in the Son.
As I begin my 50th birthday and the one-year anniversary of my separation from Pete (bracket my pituitary), I pray for the Sonshine, and I hope I remember how not to make these kinds of mistakes again on this journey. Amen.
