We humans often sit in our comfort zones and rarely even try to step out of them. Why is everything so bad?
No, I'm not saying it's like that for everyone, but it happens in most cases. It makes me sad to look at many people who, during their trips, do nothing but sit in hotels, use Wi-Fi, and swim in the sea or pool. Anyway, that's not the point right now.
Recently, I stumbled upon an interesting comparison between a "traveler" and a "tourist." Of course, they considered being a traveler cooler, since most people around are tourists. In fact, to some extent, it's true. Many people around me are surprised by the routes I take to travel around America. For example, if you start from the first year when I took a bus from New York to Montana and spent 66 hours on the road. Yes, it was incredibly difficult, but it is still the most unforgettable experience of my trips, when I met interesting people, saw many different places, ate who knows what, and barely managed to charge my phone and tablet. Then, at the end of the season, I had to live in a San Francisco hostel with 9 people in a 6-bed room.
This year, I was incredibly proud of myself when I found a piece of paper at home a couple of weeks ago with my travel plan, which I made after I got my J-1 Visa. And I actually pulled it off. A month after planning, I went, traveled around New York, Los Angeles, Portland, and arrived in Montana, considering that in each of the states I lived with friends, and in Los Angeles, I even stayed with a stranger! That's how it went. In this 12-day trip, I exhausted myself insanely, because at home I only slept, and spent all the rest of the time on the streets of cities, walking and sightseeing. I was so tired that even my mom noticed it in the words of my blog in LiveJournal. She says: "Son, I think you're starting to get tired." And that was true. At that moment, I simply didn't have the strength to write long blogs with pictures and details. I just wanted to get to Glacier and sleep.
That's the thrill, isn't it?
Over these two years, I have visited 13 states in total, in 5 of which I happened to live. I traveled by Amtrak twice, on 3 different bus companies: Greyhound, Jefferson, FDT (I have no idea what kind of company that is). I flew on 4 different American airlines: Alaska, JetBlue, Delta, American. And I crossed the border of two states by car :)
Planes are a separate topic. This time they surprised me a little with what I saw. Given that it was a night flight, they, of course, offered earplugs, masks, morning coffee, and all that. But what surprised me more was this:
This was truly incredibly cute. And I still haven't figured out how it happened that a doggy ended up in the cabin. Not the point.
I arrived in New York early in the morning, around 6 AM, and my flight to Tashkent was at 3 PM. That's a very big difference. And here we return again to the problems of travelers, or rather to sleeping in airports. On this day, it happened that some flights were either delayed or canceled, so there were a terrible number of people. But I found a great place for myself.
Having reached the place where my airlines register by the internal train, I settled down by one of the pillars. Pulling my luggage closer, I decided to sleep. It turned out to be practically a hammock.
3 hours before departure, our airlines usually start registration. Waking up, I saw a familiar uniform. Having reached the other side of the airport in literally 5-10 minutes, I now had to eat and charge my phone. Since in the last few hours I had almost drained my portable charger. Considering that I didn't want to break large bills, a comical situation arose where I first place an order at McDonald's with the last change from my card, buying a burger, and then immediately buy a Coke with the last change in cash. Once a year, you can eat at McDonald's, although, as you know, it is undesirable. I think I already mentioned this.
After that, I found a unique place that will be another tip for people like me. There are, of course, many outlets there, but it's really great to find a place where there are many of them at once. And even with USB ports.
Yes, by the way, there is a stereotype that there is no Wi-Fi at JFK. Not true. It exists. True, it catches better in the departure area, but it's not that hard to get there from the arrival area. True, the Wi-Fi is 30 minutes long and for this, you need to watch one ad banner, but for those who really need to contact someone, I think it doesn't matter.
Here I was lucky enough to meet a former classmate, with whom we chatted and passed the time. Well, then, accordingly, it was time to say goodbye to America for good. Now that's really it. Last year on the way home, I watched my favorite "Brother-2", which was recorded on my tablet. It's a pity that I didn't have a tablet this time. But in any case, "Goodbye, America."
