Equilibrium: lost

I should have posted about this before what I had yesterday, but what I wrote yesterday was just so heavy on my brain I had to get it out.

Anywho, I just got back on Sunday from a what felt like a whirlwhind tour of sorts. A whirlwind 7 city tour(Lincoln, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Orlando, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Omaha.) A crazy-weird sort of vacation that I think one is only afforded when they are an airline employee. Speaking of which, when you fly standby as you do when you are an airline employee you truly are a second-class citizen of the airport. Seriously, as I sat there in the Detroit airport after getting bumped from 3 different flights to either Tampa or Orlando I thought to myself, I feel like the equivalent of a homeless person in the airport. I mean really, no one really cares about you. If you get bumped from a flight the airline doesn't re-imburse you or put you up in a hotel for the night. If you're lucky, they might help you re-list on a later flight. Hmmm...I guess on a lighter note it did only cost me $40 to fly down and back, so thats a plus!

It was a blast. Leaving from here Friday morning I didn't really have a final destination in mind(although I did have a few narrowed down) and Florida seemed to be as good of place as any with the sun and the beaches and all. So after spending 5 hours in the airport I was off to Tampa Bay, off to tampa bay...on 3 hours of sleep. 2 hours of waiting in the airport for my friend to pick me up then a 2 hour drive back to Orlando. A rather chill evening of just catching up on things in each others lives. Driving around Orlando and seeing the various sights her apartment, downtown disney, etc.... Finding a hotel(the first ever that I have rented) some TV and some sleep.

Wake up call. Saturday morning. Wake, shower, pack, eat and I am off to Animal Kingdom with my good friend Sarah Epperson, where she works. Wow, in retrospect we did SO much at Animal Kingdom in the brief like 5 hours that we were there. The Tree of Life and Its Tough to be a Bug, Tarzan Rocks, The Safari, The Lion King Show, Rafiki's Train Ride thing, ummm.....and Dinoland or Dinosaur Expedition or something. It was all alot of fun, although I was tired. I met my three goals for the trip by Getting out of Omaha, Hanging out in the sun and Hanging out with my friend.

So straight from Animal Kingdom to the airport where I get bumped from one flight before before making it onto an alternative flight to Indianpolis...where there are no more flights home by the time I got there. So I got myself a hotel(#2 if youre counting) and let me tell you King Size Beds are HUGE!!!!! I think that I only saw about a quarter of it the entire time I was there. Sleep. Zonk. I am pooped. 5 hours later. Wake up call, shower, eat, pack and I am back at the airport. Short hop to Minneapolis with 3 hours till my next flight.

What to do? Well, Mall of America is somewhere in this big town. Right? So the obvious answer is to find it and go there. Which I did. (Public Transportation ROCKS!!!!) So yeah, I found a monorail of all things to bring me to the mall and walked around for awhile. Now. To those who think that the Mall of America is big enough that it should require like a week to see all of it. You are all wrong. I think I walked 75% of it in an hour and a half. Mind you, I didn't do much shopping. I didn't really have money or anything pressing to buy and also they closed the super cool toy store that I think took up half of the time we were in the mall with my family a few years ago. I was bummed.

But things go and as such I went back to the airport. To Lincoln, drive to Omaha and sleep!