{"id":5261,"date":"2025-08-01T04:12:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T04:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/?p=5261"},"modified":"2025-08-29T04:05:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T04:05:03","slug":"intense-travelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2025\/08\/intense-travelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Intense travelling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/see\/uploads\/big\/be2d866a9f70aacb85618b1661c00cc5.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is a magical place to me.<\/p>\n<p>32 hours of travel, 10 hours on freeways over 5 days. Family, friends, rain and mosquitoes.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There&#8217;s always apprehension before a long ass flight across half the planet.<\/li>\n<li>And yet it really feels like the bus to me. As I said <a href=\"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2024\/10\/latest-trip\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">before<\/a>, same folks, same gates, same planes.<\/li>\n<li>I end up having 3 seats to myself while being on the window side. Bliss.<\/li>\n<li>Always a treat to look outside and see the US ground.<\/li>\n<li>Then it&#8217;s Canada at night and then it&#8217;s Europe in the morning, with its rugs of clouds. You can&#8217;t see the ground, most of the time.<\/li>\n<li>I land in the rain. Not sure why I&#8217;m disappointed and annoyed, this is on-brand.<\/li>\n<li>Still, it&#8217;s July and I wanted to land in the sun, goddamn. It was 35\u00b0C\/95\u00b0F for the past 3 weeks.<\/li>\n<li>Jetlag, chocolate croissant and coffee, hello y&#8217;all!<\/li>\n<li>Not cooking and having constant great food in my mouth is the vacation.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s raining in the afternoon. Not all the time, but not a little bit either. It is pouring. <em>Orages<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>I catch up with my friend A. who I haven&#8217;t seen in 10+ years. Dining at my favorite brasserie.<\/li>\n<li>I take public transportation and giggle at how I&#8217;m not missing that shit at all. So much waiting.<\/li>\n<li>People either smell good (perfume) or bad (sweat) in Paris. In LA it&#8217;s more like neutral (clean).<\/li>\n<li>We take off the next day for family reunion, taking turns on the freeway.<\/li>\n<li>Our AirBnB is cool af, we&#8217;ve been there before. So good to see my sister.<\/li>\n<li>We eat. We drink. We laugh. They go to bed. I stay up.<\/li>\n<li>Rum shots with my cousins. I walk back to the AirBnB with the stars and an immense dark sky.<\/li>\n<li>Amber lights in the background from the little village out there. We need to get back to those in America. The high security prison &#8220;public&#8221; lights have to go.<\/li>\n<li>Next day we&#8217;re partying, tongues are unknotting, and some mild passive aggressiveness shows up.<\/li>\n<li>Nothing beats 60 years of marriage though. We&#8217;re all happy to be there and hugs and smiles are flying left and right.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s the next day already and I have to leave to rejoin my foster family, my second family, the first one timeline-wise.<\/li>\n<li>Freeway, fast, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/wmrOfzAu7LI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Playboi Carti<\/a>, on repeat.<\/li>\n<li>I see my foster mom who&#8217;s been in bad shape this year. Well, she&#8217;s not too bad! 88. Her smile, her voice and her laughter are still as contagious and strong as before. She has pictures of all her kids, grandkids, and I on top of her furniture in the dining room.<\/li>\n<li>I can&#8217;t stay long as I have a few more hours to drive to my parents&#8217; new home they&#8217;re building.<\/li>\n<li>I arrive in the super dark, stormy weather that makes you frown unconsciously.<\/li>\n<li>My sister gives me my birthday present from a couple years ago: a custom skateboard! She made the art. It is absolutely gorgeous. I&#8217;m not sure I want to tailslide it.<\/li>\n<li>We leave the next morning to get back to our Parisian suburbs. The pastries are hitting hard.<\/li>\n<li>Tiger mosquitoes as well. Fuck those! In 20mn I get 3 bites, kill one on my dad&#8217;s ankle and a couple trying to land on me. They&#8217;re relentless, active during the day. Wtf.<\/li>\n<li>Andouillette for lunch (smells like armpits, doesn&#8217;t taste like armpits). So happy.<\/li>\n<li>I drive to the store to get all the goodies: French salt, French cookies. I forget mustard.<\/li>\n<li>Time to go back home. Dad&#8217;s doing great at 75. I cherish our eyes making contact while we smile confidently when he drops me off. See you soon, tall fella.<\/li>\n<li>I transition back to being an American at the airport. After 5 days, it feels good not to have to translate nothin&#8217; in my head.<\/li>\n<li>My driver back to the crib is using a Tesla car. Those cars are terrible inside. My &#8217;99 Suzuki has seats more comfortable than this pretentious BS.<\/li>\n<li>I chop it up real quick with my brother and the dream vibe starts.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m in the gorgeous, L.A. backyard setting with diverse plants and hummingbirds. I&#8217;m on the swing, recharging my batteries with the sun on my naked back and some sirens in the distant background.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m sad. I&#8217;m happy. I&#8217;m thankful. I&#8217;m frustrated. I&#8217;m impatient. Did I dream all of this? I know there are photos.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s been a couple days and my suitcase is still 50% full, laying on the floor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Back to work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a magical place to me. 32 hours of travel, 10 hours on freeways over 5 days. Family, friends, rain and mosquitoes. There&#8217;s always apprehension before a long ass flight across half the planet. And yet it really feels like the bus to me. As I said before, same folks, same gates, same planes. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5269,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261\/revisions\/5269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}