It’s Only Day One

“How long are you in Scotland?” inquires the passport control desk agent. I always feel incredibly uncomfortable landing in the UK and being interrogated by passport control. Somehow, I always feel like I’m a common criminal due to the line of questioning and I get flustered, red, and sweaty, hoping that they’ll let me stay for my allotted period of time.

“Just for two weeks.”

“And where will you go after?”

“Um, Italy, Ireland, Iceland, and Lithuania,” I stutter back at her.

“When do you plan to return to the United States?”

“Sometime in January, I think.”

“And how are you funding this? What do you do?”

“I’m a.. travel writer?”

Thus begins my several months of solo travel.

For weeks leading up to this moment, I was getting increasingly excited (as one should) and also incredibly anxious about every possible thing ever. Somehow though, after all of my domestic travel–the drive from Texas to Pennsylvania with stops in Little Rock, Nashville, Philadelphia, New York City (I know–not really “on the way” to PA, but it was worth it), and Pittsburgh, I started to lose the excitement.

Yesterday was my last day in the States, and it was mostly spent running last-minute errands and standing around in airports for hours. But even as the flight time ticked closer, even as I boarded my first, then second, then third flights to get to Glasgow where I currently sit, I didn’t even feel a twinge of excitement. I don’t know where it’s gone.

I really want to chalk it up to the fact that I’ve been basically running myself into the ground for weeks now and I’m just absolutely burnt out. I sincerely hope that’s all that it is. I can’t be over this whole travel thing within the first few hours, right?

To hopefully counteract this lack of feeling that I’ve carried around for about a week now, I feel like I need to start this journey out slow; try to get in the right headspace first, before forcing myself out there–knowing that I’m tired, a bit cranky, and just feeling less than excited. I know myself, and all that’s going to do is reflect poorly on this city for me when it really shouldn’t.

I have a lot of really awesome things coming up that I cannot wait to share with all of you, and of course experience myself, so I think I just need to get through these first couple of days. They’re always the hardest, right? Even in the few hours since I started the post, I’ve begun to feel a bit more alive, energized, and happy to get out and explore things tomorrow.

I also have a lot of posts about my domestic travel coming up, so stay tuned!