Go east

After three weeks of westerly travel, I'm changing directions tonight and heading home. I'll start the 4,500 kms back and the thought of all that ground ahead of me makes me feel incredibly tired. But, in less than a week, I will cover it. (MacBook, mama's coming home!) Last night I was riding the SkyTrain through Vancouver and looking at the city lights. I started to get excited; it was so similar to taking off into the air, watching the city transform into a swarm of lights and dissapearing behind a cloud. But wait, that's not how my Vancouver exit would happen. By train, you wave a very long goodbye to a city, seeing all its suburb and exurb warts before you hit farmland and then wilderness. I'm so accustomed to the airport ritual that marks almost every arrival or departure that I'm craving that jetsetting finality. I was ready for the train journey, but mentally I had reverted back to the typical airplane departure. Sure, the leisurely pace of train travel is nice. Everyone knows there are full days and nights before you reach your destination that no one's bothered about a few hours delay or whether someone wants to go ahead of them. Next time I take a plane, I think I'll be so zen about the whole process. Who cares that we're waiting on the tarmac, at least we'll be there in the next 24 hours! It only took a week of sleeping on a train to reach this state of calm.