Fake President Josiah Bartlett once asked his best friend Leo McGary to “jump off a cliff.” While, Josiah Bartlett was only asking him to serve as his fake Chief of Staff on the political television drama The West Wing; the idea of figuratively jumping off a cliff remains romantic in a way.
My trip has begun and I have just jumped off a cliff.
I’m currently motoring along I-465 at a comfortable 60 mph headed from Indianapolis to O’Hare International Airport. I’ve spent every waking minute of the last three days trying to get ready for the trip while simultaneously finishing a research paper for Professor Judice. This meant an odd mix of picking up last minute items, researching health care policy, and packing at least four times so that I could get everything to fit in perfectly. All while trying to spend the last few days of quality time with my family I will have for a while.
There were countless moving parts and loose ends I had to type up. For example, I notified all my banks that I would be traveling all summer. Each of these conversations went something like this:
Me: “Hi, I needed to let you know that I’ll be traveling internationally soon.”
Bank Representative: “Great Mr. McBride, where will you be going?”
Me: “Well… Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Netherlands, Turkey, South Africa, and Australia. In that order.”
Bank Representative: “You’re going all those places?!”
Me: “Yes. I’ve got quite the summer coming up.”
Bank Representative: “Wow. I’ve never had to put in so many countries, hold a minute…”
But all of that is behind me now. The logistics are done (God forbid I forgot something) and it’s time to get traveling.
In the next 24 hours from now, I will take off from O’Hare, spend a bit of time in JFK, take an overnight flight and finally arrive in Sao Paulo Thursday morning at 9 am. See you then.