I’m back from my most recent travel adventure. And a fun adventure it was. For a little while on both my trip to Houston and returning from there, I made some travel friends. Which I think is cool. It started at my departing airport with the airline changing my departing gate 5 times or so before settling on the final departure gate.
I was sitting at one of the assigned gates before the final gate when a woman and her two children came over. There was a free seat next to me and one of the kids said in German something about it being a free seat. I responded in German that he should sit there.
For those of you who don’t know, I have been working on learning German for quite some time. I can’t vouch for how good I am as I don’t get to use it much, but this was a small opportunity.
I asked a few questions of the woman, and we talked a while. As it turns out the little group was traveling back from Munich and visiting family. The gate changed and they needed to go do what you do with young kids, so they left. I got some water and then wondered over to the next assigned gate. They were there and the kids were having fun with a gentleman who was on the phone. He was really nice about it all and everything was genial. And then it came time to board.
When I got on board it turned out, one of my seat mates was the woman with the two kids. The boys were one in the row in front of her and one behind.
The little boy in the row in front ended up spending most of the flight with us in our row. At one point he was stretched across the laps of the three of us. Some of what was fun was that because he would talk to his mom in German I got to listen. And I was pleasantly surprised to find I followed most of his conversation. It was also a lot of fun to answer him in German. He didn’t expect it and he would clam up. It was quite comical.
The boy in the row behind made friends with the woman sitting in the window seat and was really quite self-contained especially considering that at four and a half he was the younger of the boys.
They had been traveling for a day or possibly more and were all a bit on the punchy side. The woman was hoping the boys would sleep on the flight, but they didn’t. At least not for most of it. I think they finally fell asleep just before we started our decent.
I know this doesn’t even begin to explain why but for me this was probably one of the most fun flights I’ve taken in a while. I suppose it had to do with how relaxed we all were about it. It didn’t matter that the one boy wanted to sit with us. Or that the other crawled under the seats to visit our row when his brother first came over the seat. It didn’t matter that the one was trying to get a nap but couldn’t get comfortable until we stretched him out. And it didn’t matter or bother anyone that we were talking too much and keeping him awake and he let us know that. It was funny. And for me it was a great flight. Hopefully those couple of hours gave the woman a bit of a respite that made it a little easier to make it through the last leg of their trip home.
My trip home started with some fun as well. Though it didn’t continue on the plane this time. I think much to the relief of one of the other passengers.
I was sitting at a bar/food place ordering some breakfast when this gentleman comes up next to me and leans a guitar case against the counter next to me and sits down next to the guitar. I could probably stop the story there and many of you would just figure out that we got to talking. Which would be accurate. But there is a little more fun to this.
So yes, I asked what he had in the case and that started a conversation. We each ordered some breakfast and he asked for “hahm” on his breakfast sandwich. The server didn’t understand him, so I translated, “ham”. Which then prompted the question of where he was from. He’s from Australia. So, more conversation.
We were a fair bit early for the flight, so we chatted while we waited for the flight. And we talked about all kinds of things. It was a great chat. I really enjoyed it. It came time for boarding to start so we continued to chat while we were waiting for the boarding groups. As we were standing around waiting, a guy who’d been sitting the other side of me came up and said something about if we were sitting next to each other on the flight because if we were, it was going to be a long flight. He was sort of amazed about the gamut of topics we’d covered in the hour or so that we were sitting at the bar. We got a good laugh out of that.
We weren’t seated near each other so once I boarded the plane that was the end of the conversation and the fun. The flight was quiet and uneventful. Which is how you want a plane ride to be, uneventful.
The trip was good and covered a good bit of ground. The original purpose was to visit a friend and see the Space Center in Houston. We did that the first day. It was cool to see. I think what was most interesting and disorienting for me was that it was in the city for the most part and as far as I am concerned.
I’m used to Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral in Florida which is an hour or so drive east from Orlando and is part of the Canaveral National Seashore which means there’s not much around the complex. It’s sort of in the middle of nowhere relatively speaking. So that was a big difference with Johnson and Houston Space Center. My friend and I were a bit tired from my late arrival the night before, so we opted for an Uber to and from the Center. We had a great driver on the way back from the Center. Apparently, we got positive marks from the driver for good conversation.
The next day was the Houston Zoo. Yes. It is August. Yes. We went to the Zoo in August. Yes. It was hot. And apparently, I was holding up much better in my jeans and boots than my friend in his shorts and sneakers. I have no explanation. I did get a bunch of great pictures though. That’s what I was hoping for with the trip to the zoo. I was hoping to get photos of animals, and maybe some plants. And I did manage both. I got a lot of animal pictures and a few really cool flower pictures. I’m excited because it means I have more to work from and choose from for some of my next art pieces. Hooray!
The next day, my last day in Houston, was a trip to the Houston Museum of Fine Art. That turned out to be a great treat. It was nice that it was all inside and cool since outside it was hotter than the day before. I found a couple of Van Gogh paintings, a few more Monet’s, a Caillebotte, a Seurat, and a Rousseau. They even had a prime example of a Fauvist painting. That was cool to see. We pretty much spent the whole day in the museum. We got there when it opened and left close to closing time. A day well spent in my books. And I had no idea Houston had such a nice fine art museum.
This was a fun trip and a nice change of pace. And, though it may take me the week to get rested and recovered, I’m excited to get back into all the things I’ve been working on. More soon. Cheers!