I was happy to be finally on my way to an English-speaking country, and excited to see my cousin Ana for the first time in about eight years. I did have one moment of blind panic on the flight into LA however. When I looked at the LAN in-flight magazine at the page on filling in immigration forms for the USA, neither Portugal nor Australia were listed as countries eligible for the visa waiver program. Now, I had done extensive research before I left for my trip as to whether or not I needed a visa to get into the US, and had found that neither Portuguese nor Australian citizens needed a visa for stays of less than 90 days. But when I was in the air, about to land on US soil, with the immigration police right on the other side of the airport wall, and I didn’t find Australia or Portugal on the list, I became immediately convinced that they were going to assume I was a terrorist, and interrogate and deport me on arrival because I had no visa. Of course, this never eventuated, they just took a fingerprint, stamped away and sent me onwards. I hated LAN at that moment for their inaccurate magazine sending me into a spiral of self-doubt. But I got over it when I realised I was in the USA, legally, and on my way to Boulder. That excitement wore off fast however and gave way to boredom. Is there any other mood in airport lounges? LAX is enormous, but there’s still not much to do. You would think that in a building where everybody is essentially waiting around, you could make a lot of money providing something for people to do other than eat and buy duty-free perfume. My flight to Phoenix finally took off, and I was on my way to Denver.
What excitement when I finally reached my destination! Not only was my epic flight finally over, Anita was meeting me at the airport! We did the usual huggy and kissy things, and she introduced me to Santiago, her three and half month old baby boy, who was asleep at the time, but very cute. We hopped in the car and I got my first real introduction to the North American winter – I had acclimatised a little to the cold in Cusco, but Boulder is 2000 metres above sea level and it was snowing! We drove home, chatting a million miles an hour, and got to Anita’s place, which is in typical, eerily tranquil American suburbia. The place is gorgeous though, with enormous and incredibly soft couches, which I lost no time falling asleep on. Not before my control-freak mother had called to make sure I had gotten in ok, not even ten minutes after we walked in the door.
The next day Anita and Dani (her husband) had planned to go skiing, so we packed the little one in the car and set off for the powder. I, personally, can’t stand skiing, but I had plenty of postcard writing and sitting on my arse to catch up on (sitting on planes doesn’t count – unless you’re in first class, how are you supposed to relax in those cramped little seats? And airport lounges are hardly more comfortable). I helped Ana and Dani babysit Santi while they tore up the slopes. We went to a totally yummy Mexican restaurant for dinner, and looked out onto the snowy town at night, which was very picturesque. Even though I had done bugger all that day and Dani and Ana had been exercising like mad, guess who fell asleep in the car on the way home? In fact it took quite a few days of sitting around for me to totally recover from the madness of Peru. I didn’t realise how exhausted I was until I had a chance to rest and I realised I didn’t want to do anything except eat, sleep, and talk. I did plenty of that over the next nine days! Ana had gone out of her way to make sure I had plenty of healthy food to eat because I’d been whining about how much junk food I’d eaten in Argentina, but somehow I managed to find all the cookies, waffles, cheese, and chocolate they had hidden in the house! I forgave myself a lot because I was on holidays, and to be honest I was mainly eating quite well (more or less). And despite holiday mode, I was finally running again! Ana was sure I was completely insane, running in the dead of the Boulder winter in trackies and a singlet, but you get hot after a while, and the sun was shining! Plus no wind, which made it warmer than running in Dublin. I did my 20 minutes, but was kind of wrecked after I got back. That’s what five weeks of not running and eating ice-cream will do. I felt better after I got back and Dani asked me, “How did you go?”, and I replied “Oh my god, I’m sooo out of shape!”, to which he responded matter-of-factly, “You’re not out of shape, you’re 2000 metres above sea level.” Woohoo! I can blame it on the altitude! Actually I think he was right as I continued to run nearly every day in Boulder and I acclimatised fairly quickly.
Plenty of things happened over the next few days: Ana and Dani got me hooked on “24” (How is “Chack” going guys?); we went to “The Teahouse” and got a free dessert because Ana found a hair in her meal; Ana went to the dentist and I took Santi for a stroll in downtown Boulder; we went to lunch several times with Anita’s friends; Santi got sick with an ear infection and a cold; I tried to update my blog and write emails; I slept in various times; we bought a pile of cool stuff with which to decorate Santi’s room; I got chatting for an hour in the middle of the night to an orphan with an American citizenship and a Welsh identity who came to our door to sell I never found out what; we went for coffee and the guy behind the counter took a fancy to Ana and gave us delicious cookies for free; I sang Beatles songs to Santi and tried to educate him about good music; and heaps of other “life stuff”. The best part was being with Ana again. Never having had sisters being with my girl cousins is an experience I cherish. They are all very, even wildly different, but all my beautiful family.
Eventually however, my honeymoon period of hanging out and being lazy (my favourite pastime) was over and, now that my batteries were fully recharged, it was time to leave Boulder and start exploring the West coast. I’m crap at goodbyes, but this one was very cheerful. Dani made a delicious lunch, we drank caipirinhas, I said a long and kissy goodbye to Santi (I miss you so much you little monster) and Ana and I hopped into the car and were Denver-airport bound. Even after so much travelling I was feeling more than a little anxious about the next part of my journey – I guess that’s something I’ll never get over, and I’m not sure if I even want to. Part of the whole idea of travelling for me is to rejuvenate myself by propelling myself constantly into the unknown. Once the unknown ceases to challenge me, I won’t be able to learn anything from it anymore. So onward to the Golden Gate city.
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