The usual grueling international travel experience started off with a challenge at the Paris airport where the ticket agent said that miles hadn’t been pulled for my upgrade and I didn’t have enough miles left in my account to do it, and I would have to fly coach class even though I had a little piece of paper saying I was assigned to seat 8A. I don’t really mind traveling coach since I fit fine in the seats and I usually just read and sleep the entire time I’m on a plane. But on a 9 hour flight it’s really nice to be upgraded. I was really polite and spoke as much as possible in French and asked if maybe we could pull miles from my husband’s account. Oh, no, madame, that would be completely against the rules since he’s not here to witness and sign and you have no proof he even knows you and you don’t have his account number anyway. So then when I was able to rattle off Brad’s account number from memory, the agent actually laughed and said he’d see what he could do. And I did get to sit in seat 8A.
Getting from the plane to the customs checkpoint in Chicago must have been a mile long walk. It was at least 20 minutes at a brisk walking pace. Maybe you’re observed by Customs and Border Patrol the whole way to see if you look furtive or something. I was already exhausted, which was exacerbated by having to transfer my own 67 pound suitcase (just under the 70 pound international limit!) and my 56 pound suitcase and my roll-aboard and my laptop case through customs without my usual Brad sherpa companion. By the time I got onto my flight from Chicago to Denver I felt pretty shaky and sick from all the adrenaline and being awake for hours and hours. I’m not really at my best between say 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., which is what time it was in Paris. I even pulled my little air sickness bag out of the seat pocket and had it ready in case I didn’t make it, and then fell into a deep deep sleep as soon as my stomach calmed down. When the pilot announced that the snow had stopped falling in Denver and we would arrive early, I was really happy.
I went to baggage claim where Brad and I had agreed to meet, and he was looking for me in the wrong direction so I got to completely sneak up on him, which was fun. While we were hugging, I noticed that he was standing really close to someone else’s luggage, not a suitcase, but some kind of instrument case, which is when I finally saw the man with the trumpet, who proceeded to play a trumpet fanfare in my honor! Brad and I have an old, good joke between us, which is that when he’s working and I come into the room, I’d like a flourish of trumpets since I’m a human and therefore more important and interesting than the computer (a topic we continue to actively debate). So he sings a little trumpet call for me sometimes. And in celebration of my return home after being gone for six weeks, he arranged for a musician from the Boulder Philharmonic to come out to DIA and give me a real welcome. Pretty special, really thoughtful, and since I was one of the first people off the plane and scurried quickly to baggage claim, not many people saw/heard, which is just right for introverted me. Brad really puts energy into keeping the romance alive, after almost 15 years together. Thanks for the trumpets — I’m happy to be home.
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