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This past April I had the chance to attend a very innovative seminar in one of my fields of interest - Tarot (I am a professional Tarot reader). I booked the seminar, the hotel room, the airline tickets, the shuttle to and from the airport - I was good to go! Hah! Guess again! I had to fly cross country - meaning that in order to arrive at my destination at a reasonable hour, I had to get on a shuttle from my home at 3 am - that reads three o'clock in the morning! Several stops later (and 15 minutes spent lost in a heavily wooded area with "almost" roads!) we had picked up all passengers and were headed for the airport. The van itself was new, and spotless, the driver very nice and the other passengers interesting, so t he trip was comfortable. The Seattle-Tacoma airport is one of the better airports in the country, in my very biased opinion. :) I had no trouble getting through security and finding my boarding area. The wait was not a long one, but I soon learned that I am not an aficionado of indiscriminate cell phone use! LOL I had a middle seat (note to self - book future flights way ahead of time so this doesn't happen again!), which made the flight less than comfortable. The connecting flight, in Pittsburgh, was right on time and easily found - but Pittsburgh has cell phones too! ;-) I arrived at the airport, breathed a sigh of relief when I located my luggage, and went to wait for the hotel shuttle (advertised to stop every 15 minutes). Yuppers - it went by every 15 minutes, but it never stopped! I was tired, frustrated - ready to go home! And then there was the "Aha!" experience - perhaps I need to call the hotel and tell them which baggage area I am at! I go back inside, call the hotel, and the next shuttle stops. Yahoo! The shuttle is new, well kept up, the driver is friendly, and we are on our way. Ummm - on our way in New York traffic - this is La Guardia airport, and all drivers are suicidal! OK I get to my destination, and am given a lovely room. My roommate comes in later that evening, and we have a great time talking. (I have known her on the internet for years, but we have never met in person.) The three days of the conference go very fast - the conference is well organized, I am meeting people that I have heard of for years, and am totally thrilled with the whole thing! On Sunday afternoon I get on the shuttle and go back to the airport. All of the drivers are still in suicide mode! I finally get on the plane - a major event, as the plane is cool, where the airport was way too warm! I have a middle seat again, but that is fine. The first hop is a short one, then I have a window seat. I just settle in, when the pilot announces that we will be on the ground for 45 minutes to an hour to change a questionable tire. The plane has already been on the ground for 30 minutes - we all know who I am questioning! They disembark all passengers that will miss their connections, of which I am one. I join a few other single passengers and a group of 15 people traveling on a charter. I get up to the desk - I cannot get a flight out ... I have to stay the night in NYC. Will the airlines pay for that? Yes, they do. I also get a through flight the next day on a major airlines. My luck holds - I locate my luggage, and this time I know to actually call the hotel and ask them to pick me up. The van looks good from the outside, but it has no step to help in getting in - just a huge step up! At 5' 2", and 54 years of age, with arthritic knees, this was not a joy to behold. Getting to the hotel was not a joy to behold either - had I know where the hotel was located, I would never have agreed to stay there. I get on the elevator, find my room, go back down for change to: call the airlines and arrange for seating (where I find out that the "through flight" changes planes in Minneapolis!); call my mother and ask her to continue feeding my cat until the next day; call the shuttle that will be taking me home from Sea-Tac and change my reservations. Back in my room I lock everything thoroughly. I am not going out to dinner - the place scares me to death. And the soda machine only has Pepsi! I turn on the TV, find the NBA, and lay down to watch back to back games. I wake up two hours later, smelling the strong odor of something burning. I see no smoke, there are no alarms or running feet in the hallway, so I turn the TV off and go to bed. I wake up in the morning, the room has fine black particles all over it, but no evidence of a fire. I shower, dress, and get a non-Pepsi drink and munchies for breakfast. The same shuttle gets me back to the airport. I locate my boarding area, and happily get on the first leg of my trip home. The airport in Minneapolis is wonderfully quiet (after La Guardia - anything is wonderfully quiet!), so I have breakfast and wait for my next flight. Flying into Sea-Tac made me very, very happy! LOL I was home by 9 pm Monday night. Tuesday I was fine - cleaned house, washed cloths, got back into the swing of life. Wednesday morning I had a sore throat. Thursday morning I lost my voice a bit, Friday morning I lost my voice completely. For one entire week I was unable to talk - which meant that I was unable to work! One week later I could talk - enough to work in short, two hour spurts. My personal feeling is that my body reacted to the stress of the airports, and to whatever the "fire that wasn't a fire" was in that second hotel. I have to acknowledge that, for whatever reason, travel is now stressful for me. I still want to travel, but will in the future be taking several precautions. I would have been a great deal wiser if I had remembered to take my multiple vitamins with me, and if I had remembered to take the bottle of vitamin C that sits in a basket on my kitchen counter (vitamin C, magnesium and B-complex vitamins are great for combating stress). I could also have included my bottle of Ginseng! Had I been truly wise, I would have also visited my sister - a massage therapist who markets her own blends of aromatherapy sprays and other aromatherapy products. I could have carried a small vial of lavender or chamomile with me, or sprayed my hotel room with their essences. Chamomile tea bags would have also fit nicely into my luggage! The conference that I attended looks to be a yearly event, and I certainly plan to attend again. However, next year I will be making some changes in my plans, and paying better attention to myself. Here is my short list:
* Book my flights straight through - no stops, no changes of airplane. How one deals with stress will differ greatly from person to person. Look ahead at what "might" create stress for you. Decide how you are going to handle each issue, and take the appropriate "tools" with you - whether they be vitamin or herbal supplements, aromatherapy tools or a soothing tape ... make best use of whatever works for you. I wish you all joyful, peaceful traveling experiences. Mitakuye Oyasin - For All Of Our Relations
For more information on vitamin and mineral supplements to combat stress, please visit the following sites: Stress Management, Vitamin and Mineral Therapy, vitamin supplements, holisticonline.com
For more information on aromatherapy treatments, please visit the following sites: Stress, aromatherapy for stress management, alternative medicine, holisticonline.com
Bonnie Cehovet
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