Travelin’

Traveling’s gotten easier. With a clean shirt and a credit card the world is yours. I’d recommend a pair of dress-up/dress-down boots and mid-weight jacket to get started, but everything else you might need can be had along the way.

Tap your card and the subway doors swing wide. Hotel keys are quickly dispatched. Food, undies, and other sundries available as needed. It’s essential to always maintain positivity despite jet lag and sore feet, but dwell in your heart and don’t be afraid to ask around when you get confused. “Sorry, stupid American question here…” is always a great way to endear yourself to the nascent kindness of natives.

That doesn’t make it cheap. No, no. Expect to bleed money at every turn. You’ll have no idea where to find a good sale, and you’ll miss out on discounts that could have been had by stocking up and planning ahead. There will be no refrigerator to raid at midnight, no chance to make do with the spare whatever in the back of your closet. But that’s the magic of plastic. You only see the bill when you get back home.

Getting your paperwork in order is essential, but once you do, no one cares to examine your documents. Border security has been reduced to scans and photographs. If you’re in, you’re in.

We hadn’t done a big trip since before the Covid thing. And yes, Covid is still a thing, although nobody much cares anymore. Some dinged-up signs of the pandemic still remain: “Maintain two meters for social distancing,” “Masks recommended.” These notices meep impotently at queues jammed cheek-to-bowel with uncovered faces. I’d estimate mask wearing at 4%, meaningless in crowds that number the thousands.

And speaking of crowds, my eyes lit upon more people in a week than I’d usually see in a year around the loose-strewn prairie towns of South Dakota. At every turn — Waterloo, Piccadilly, Trafalgar, Heathrow, Oxford Street, Camden — masses merged and dispersed again. The world’s not short on people. No, you’re not special. Your failings and fortunes mean nothing here. You just gotta do you. It’s freeing, actually.

Despite my general abhorrence of GPS, it is a most comforting thing to pull up a tiny map of your exact location whenever the wrong-turn anxiety kicks in. But never forget that Google Map’s recommendations are just suggestions and nothing more. Adherence to the computed route can be stressful as well. Know the big streets and stay attuned to cardinal directions. Give yourself time, and feel free to indulge in the unexpected. You’ll be fine.

But for better or worse, you’ve still got to come home. And home for me is America. I love America, but I think we could do America a little better.

Waiting for our plane at Heathrow, I was surrounded by unaffordable things: Gucci, Dior, Rolex, Cartier, etc, etc. I treated myself instead to a last smoked-salmon sandwich and a kombucha from Pret A Manger. Pleasant voices echoed updates on procedures and schedules. Security was easy, and yes, I could keep my boots on. Nobody thought I was going to blow my feet off.

Arriving at O’Hare, we were shuffled through dingy walkways to a cattle-chute labyrinth that doubled as the immigration control center. Poor signage left us confused on the hunt for our next flight. Then a tram to another terminal, another bout of security, this time complete with shoe-removal and twitchy TSA workers, riled by a bottle of water and some poor kid’s pack of pocketed gum.

From luxury and efficiency to buzzy fluorescence and debris. Welcome home. But I’m here now, and it’s time to get back to it and make the most of it. The bills will soon arrive.