Day 182: Return to Seattle

My flight would leave at 7:40am. I took an Uber at 6am a mere 15 minutes away to the airport.

Waiting in line to check my bag was a bit stressful due to the erratic behavior of the line attendant. I had a mobile boarding pass, but the line attendant kept repeating over and over "You must have a printed boarding pass", followed by a passing mention of "Mobile boarding passes are okay, too", before repeating ten more times how we absolutely must have a printed boarding pass to be in line. When I was just a few people from the front of the line, the same lady starts yelling out "Do we have anyone flying to Seattle?! Everyone flying to Seattle gather here!". I couldn't understand what the hell she was on about now, seeing that it was almost exactly 70 minutes before my flight was supposed to leave -- long enough that I needn't be expedited but short enough that she couldn't possibly want us to prioritize passengers on other flights. I ignored her, and checked everything perfectly fine at the counter, glad to finally be out of earshot of her. The rest of the boarding process was uneventful and I was in the air on schedule, on my way home.

Landing in Seattle, I met up with my girlfriend at the baggage claim (Yes! We survived 182 whole days apart!) and took the light rail back to the University of Washington, near where I had leased an apartment for the year. We stopped at Cafe on the Ave (our all-time favorite Ave cafe) for lunch. Even after all those stellar European cafes, Cafe on the Ave still holds its own pretty well.

I'm pretty sure weather conditions were exactly like this when I left half a year ago.
Thankfully it is now considerably warmer.

If we count the day I left Seattle, I spent just over half year abroad. I haven't done the exact calculations yet, but because of my quick pace of travel (typically a week in each location, then bus, train, or plane to the next), I spent about 10,000 USD. Perhaps a third of that was on inter-city transportation costs. Compared to simply living in the US, $10,000 is an astoundingly low amount to spend for half a year of traveling the world. But it's unfair to make a direct comparison considering I had no income of my own during that 6-month period.

Perhaps I will write some further posts, but until then, this journal has ended. See ya.