Half way around the world!

My travel is never without adventure, sometimes more than I would like to handle! Of course, very glad to have spent a relaxing 4 weeks at home this time, being there for my niece’s birthday. She was super excited. And my homesickness continues.

But it feels like the 4 weeks of relaxation has already drained. I couldn’t head back to Nigeria straight as there is a travel ban if you have spent 14 days in India prior to arrival (does not apply to citizens and permanent residents). I knew this before I left Nigeria. I had an alternate plan chalked out which was to spend 14 days elsewhere before heading to Abuja. With COVID travel restrictions, logistically it was easiest to go to DC than trying to get to a visa to elsewhere. So I ,get to DC on a Monday evening, exhausted after a miserably long haul flight wherein I couldn’t sleep a wink. I already don’t enjoy flights, add to it a packed flight and terrible washrooms. I am sorry, but people really don’t know how to use washrooms. Forget about leaving it clean and dry for the next person!

Anyway I land, get to my friend’s place and retire early for the night. First thing in the morning at 5 am I get a message that the travel ban has been lifted. Much as I was happy for the news, the timing irked me. Couldn’t it have come one day earlier?! Now that I knew, I had to make plans to leave earlier than planned. There goes my weekend plan to Austin up in the air. It was a physically exhausting week trying to catch up on work backlog and trying to plan to return. I book a flight for Sat night and get my COVID test done. I hardly told anyone I was in DC, except for 2 friends. There was no way I could manage the catching up. I believed I was sorted.

Then one day before I am to leave, there is a whole lot of confusion because I figured out that the lifting of the travel ban was not published in any government website. Qatar said they had no information so they won’t let me board unless I can show evidence. News article was not going to work. I was glad I atleast had the presence of mind to check with the airline. I was almost going to reschedule my ticket and schedule another COVID test. But after a 6 hour back and forth on calls and emails, and to wonderful efforts from a colleague in the office, the information is published late in the evening on Friday. With hardly any time left, I manage to do some quick shopping. 

As though to be compensated, I got lucky on the 13-hour flight from DC to Doha. There was only a handful of people in the flight, so I stretched fully across 3 seats for a blissful sleep. No food, no movies. More than my body, my mind needed rest. So here I am in Doha on a 12-hour layover. Then have a connecting 10-hour flight to Abuja via Lagos. I can’t wait to get to my home in Abuja. It’s a total 35-hour journey, absolutely crazy. There were shorter connections, but the schedule didn’t work. But even with marginal inconvenience, it was worth sticking to my favorite airline. I love you Qatar Airways! It was not the food or the comfort of the lounge that lured me this time, but the shower!

A big thank you to two lovely friends, Harini and Zohra. Meeting them was the silver lining to my DC trip. For all other purposes, it was a useless and unwanted trip half away around the world. Except that these experiences create material for my blogs!