Cranky Traveler

I had to take a quick trip to New York last week (after being there only about two weeks earlier) for my day job and found the experience to be both exhausting and annoying. I'm just not cut out to travel constantly. Getting up early to get to the airport, going through the hassle of checking in for a flight, schlepping through security, boarding, the flight itself, deplaning...it's all exhausting. If I had to travel constantly for work, I'd have to find another job. This last trip, while not bad in terms of my flights leaving and arriving on time and having no real problems, still annoyed me because I just wasn't in the mood to travel. I was the cranky traveler. Everything was pissing me off. The sweater I wore when flying out of O'Hare set off the security monitors, so I had to get a pat down complete with a check around the waistband of my pants. Lovely. And O'Hare still doesn't have their monorail working, so I had to get on the shuttle bus from the economy parking lot to get to the terminal. This thing has been down for, what, two years now? Ridiculous. That adds an extra half hour onto my commute time. Coming back through Newark, I had a terrible burger at an airport in the restaurant. (Everyone doesn't want ketchup on their burgers, folks.) Then the woman sitting next to me on the flight kept elbowing me every time she turned a page in her book, so I had to contort myself to avoid contact with her. I didn't get home until after 11:30 pm Thursday and I was exhausted, but couldn't sleep. Great. Again, I was cranky, and there were no real problems. The weather was great in NYC and I usually enjoy going there even though my time is short when I'm there for work. I really need to take a week off or do a long weekend in New York so I have time to actually enjoy the city.