Upon arrival in Toronto yesterday about 5 p.m. ET (Thursday), we had a mighty disappointment to learn that our flight to Columbus was "cancelled" for lack of a crew. Because of my job and its travel requirements, I know this is sometimes an unexpected occurrence so just need to buck up and get it figured out. Tour leaders Aimee and Dave Walton jumped into the lurch, got it all sorted out for the group, and the mood visibly lightened when Aimee said while passing out the tickets (paraphrasing) to "Be thankful as there are a lot of people in the world who don't have a bed to sleep in tonight". She is just soft as a comfortable shoe and I mean that in the most complimentary way.
By bits and pieces we straggled into a nearby Radisson for an overnight. Most of us elected to keep our luggage at the airport so as to not have to recheck it Friday morning (which it is as of this writing), so that confined me to using one of the complimentary razors there. These always, well frankly, suck, but hey clean shaven in the morning makes me feel like a new man.
With our vouchers for dinner, most of us adjourned to the hotel restaurant which was clearly overmanned - a bartender and one waitress doing double duty for room service. I ordered a burger and fries and was told that "we're out of burgers, so what else?". Who ever heard of a bar running out of hamburgers? Turned out, though, to be fortuitous as I switched to a Philly cheesesteak (or something sort of resembling it) and was able to share it with Father Schalk who joined me for a few minutes of great conversation. One of the clear joys of this trip was getting to know him a little better, experiencing his spiritual leadership, and listening to his great homilies.
Cheryl skipped dinner and went to the room where I found her doing one of her favorite avocations, watching HGTV. Not much of that happened in Israel, so it was an early visible symbol about getting back to our normal routine. It was then I realized I had no CPAP (which allows me to sleep oh so deeply), etc. but I turned on the room fan that I thought would help drown out any of my snoring. Somewhere around 1 a.m., though, Cheryl woke me up sounding like something from the Black Lagoon because the fan was making noises of that type of creature.
Off it went and I resolved to try and be as quiet as possible for the remainder of the night. About 3:15 a.m. I went to "wide awake" status as my body is still on Jerusalem time. After 15 minutes of laying there hearing "Jesus Christ Superstar" refrains coursing through my mind, I got up, used the crappy razor, and took a hot shower. Now, I'm ready to rock and on we're on our way downstairs for our 5:30 a.m. departure for the Toronto airport and home.
I would like to offer some thoughts on the meaning of this trip for Cheryl and I some please anticipate, if you're following along, a small "post script" sometime this weekend. In the meantime, off to the airport clean as a whistle (sort of when wearing less than clean clothes).
By bits and pieces we straggled into a nearby Radisson for an overnight. Most of us elected to keep our luggage at the airport so as to not have to recheck it Friday morning (which it is as of this writing), so that confined me to using one of the complimentary razors there. These always, well frankly, suck, but hey clean shaven in the morning makes me feel like a new man.
With our vouchers for dinner, most of us adjourned to the hotel restaurant which was clearly overmanned - a bartender and one waitress doing double duty for room service. I ordered a burger and fries and was told that "we're out of burgers, so what else?". Who ever heard of a bar running out of hamburgers? Turned out, though, to be fortuitous as I switched to a Philly cheesesteak (or something sort of resembling it) and was able to share it with Father Schalk who joined me for a few minutes of great conversation. One of the clear joys of this trip was getting to know him a little better, experiencing his spiritual leadership, and listening to his great homilies.
Cheryl skipped dinner and went to the room where I found her doing one of her favorite avocations, watching HGTV. Not much of that happened in Israel, so it was an early visible symbol about getting back to our normal routine. It was then I realized I had no CPAP (which allows me to sleep oh so deeply), etc. but I turned on the room fan that I thought would help drown out any of my snoring. Somewhere around 1 a.m., though, Cheryl woke me up sounding like something from the Black Lagoon because the fan was making noises of that type of creature.
Off it went and I resolved to try and be as quiet as possible for the remainder of the night. About 3:15 a.m. I went to "wide awake" status as my body is still on Jerusalem time. After 15 minutes of laying there hearing "Jesus Christ Superstar" refrains coursing through my mind, I got up, used the crappy razor, and took a hot shower. Now, I'm ready to rock and on we're on our way downstairs for our 5:30 a.m. departure for the Toronto airport and home.
I would like to offer some thoughts on the meaning of this trip for Cheryl and I some please anticipate, if you're following along, a small "post script" sometime this weekend. In the meantime, off to the airport clean as a whistle (sort of when wearing less than clean clothes).
Comments
Post a Comment