We got to the airport and checked in for our flight to Shanghai, connecting in Tokyo, this morning. But as Chris was looking at our boarding passes, he noticed that while both of our frequent flier numbers were noted on the passes, his status was mentioned and mine was not. So he told me to ensure that everything was correct by speaking to the gate agent. I went to the gate, which was being managed by contractors (well, they weren’t Japanese), and the gate agent said that it was a mistake on the American Airlines side, and that AA would need to correct this.

Well, that made no sense because this booking was done directly via Japan Airlines on their website, so how could this be a mistake on the part of American? I proceeded to call the American Airlines executive platinum desk to tell me what the JAL gate agent told me. The AA agent on the phone checked my ticket number and found out that my name was actually written incorrectly on the ticket (it noted my middle name as my first name and my first name as my middle name…), which was probably why my status was not showing up. This would also mean that my account would not get the frequent flier mile credit unless this was credited. AA couldn’t do anything to fix this and said that JAL would have to resolve this, but the only way they could do this is to reissue my ticket, which would likely cost money… if not the cost of a full ticket. Worst case scenario, I would just have to call AA after the trip and give them all the legs I flew to retroactively credit my account.

I argued back and forth with the JAL gate agent, then her supposed boss, and it was not a good experience. They never even once apologized for not being able to help me and continued to either blame me (well, Chris is the one who did the booking) and AA. I was so shocked to personally witness such rudeness and finger pointing on JAL’s part at AA for something they had nothing to do with. Chris quickly pointed out that they were not actually JAL employees but contractors, and that we’d instead get this resolved when we got to the JAL lounge in Tokyo.

And… that’s exactly what happened. When we arrived at the lounge, I explained the problem to JAL workers at the front desk, and they told me it *may* cost 5,000 yen, but they’d see what they could do to help. An hour later after multiple phone calls and online checks and balances, they not only fixed my name on my boarding pass and had the correct status noted on it, but they waived any and all charges and apologized for the inconvenience. The JAL front desk worker who was helping me had the biggest smile on her face when she found me to inform me and hand me my passport and new boarding pass. I almost wanted to jump up and hug and even tip her, but I knew that neither action would be considered appropriate or wanted.

This is one of the many, many reasons I love Japan Airlines and especially Japan: everyone is always so overly polite and helpful and will truly go above and beyond to ensure you, as a customer, are satisfied. So many cultures could learn from and benefit from their customer service and hospitality.

I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this trip to Michigan for these three days because I was planning to travel with a colleague I’d never met before. We’ve been working together since January, yet she’s been camera shy when doing video/voice calls while using Zoom, and I could hear her strong midwestern accent every single time we spoke. She’s a remote employee based in Columbus, and I really had no idea what kind of person she was at all. All I know is that Ohio is a swing state, and there was a 50/50 chance that she would be a Trump supporter. And the idea of not only traveling with her, but also being in a car ride that would last 2.5 hours from Grand Rapids to Detroit yesterday with her, would be absolutely agonizing if I found out she really was a Trump supporter.

Luckily for me, during our first morning meet up yesterday, she started complaining about President Dipshit and in general, the Republican Party, so I knew it would be safe to talk about politics with her without either of us murdering the other. We talked a lot about our personal lives, where we grew up and have lived (she spent over 15 years living in San Francisco and the Bay Area), and our general opinions about politics, culture, and travel. We even spent nearly three hours voluntarily at dinner together at Roast, a Michael Symon restaurant that was attached to hotel we stayed at last night in downtown Detroit. It was funny to sit at the bar of this restaurant eating with her, as I remembered the first time I visited Detroit with Chris back in June 2014, we ate at this same restaurant and loved it.

When the trip concluded today with our final customer meeting and her driving me to the Detroit airport, I hugged her, thanked her for driving me all over Michigan, and departed for my flight back to New York City. And honestly, I felt kind of bad about my potential hesitations of who she was as a person. I actually had a lot of fun talking to her and getting to know her, but then I questioned myself and wondered… if she WERE a Trump supporter, how exactly would I have navigated that? Could I have handled it appropriately, especially given we’re colleagues and thus in a professional relationship? Not everyone I meet and work with is going to agree with my view of the world. That’s just reality. But when that time comes at work, what am I going to do then?

I really lucked out during my 24 hours in Grand Rapids since after a delicious dinner last night, I strolled around the downtown area and found a fun coffee shop called Madcap Coffee. It’s been around for the last 11 years, and they’re known for their spacious, modern decor, strong and delicious coffee, and friendly service. They even make their own yogurt in house (for a coffee shop, that’s crazy!) and fresh fruit/granola blends.

One of the things that caught my eye on the menu this morning before I left for my customer meeting was the cafe miel. “Cafe miel” just means coffee with honey in French, but I haven’t been used to seeing this offered on menus anywhere before (no, having honey at the counter with the lids, straws, stirrers, and napkins does NOT count), so I decided to try it. Not only do they make your latte with honey as a sweetener, but they also add in some cinnamon and nutmeg to spice it up a bit. It was completed with a cute heart-shaped foam design on the top, and I enjoyed it with a cup of their house-made yogurt topped with marinated rhubarb, strawberries, and nutty granola.

It was a simple breakfast, but it was so satisfying, especially knowing that the yogurt and fruit blend was all house made, and that the coffee drink was so lovingly made with a unique twist.

I was also completely wired for the next four hours after having that cafe miel, so not only was it one of the most delicious coffee drinks I’ve had in a while, but it was also one of the strongest!

When I tell people I do a moderate amount of work travel, they either have one of two reactions: a) they think it’s glamorous and exciting, or b) they think it must be painful and annoying to have to travel away from home, in an unfamiliar place with likely few to no one you know, to do one’s job. I have a lot of colleagues who absolutely hate work travel, and they grumble when I tell them I’m not going to be in. But, at the same time, they see my Instagram stories during my work travel and accuse me of playing hooky because of the things I post. As someone who had done quite a bit of it after nearly 11 years working full time, I can certainly say that the only thing “glamorous” and “exciting” about doing work travel is the amount of frequent flier miles and hotel points you can accumulate from business travel (and thus, free hotel nights/flights/flight upgrades during personal travel).

There have been times when it’s been lonely and annoying, especially in places that aren’t as metropolitan as New York or San Francisco, but the way that I’ve made it into something enjoyable is to fit in a few things that I can do for myself that I will enjoy. It could be a walk through Olympic Centennial Park while I’m in Atlanta visiting a customer, a run on the beach during sunrise in Miami, or a stroll to see the Bean, one of my all-time favorite public sculptures (I don’t care how “touristy” it is) while in Chicago. Another thing I like to do is find a good, interesting local spot to eat at and/or enjoy some local well crafted coffee or tea. I have to eat anyway, and it’s nice to try something that is local and well loved by the people in the area.

Tonight, after sifting through a lot of generic and boring sports bars and “American pubs” in the downtown Grand Rapids area on my Yelp app, I came upon an interesting “new American” restaurant called The Little Bird. It just happened to be about three blocks away from the hotel where I was staying, so I figured I’d pop in for an early dinner and sit at the bar. The restaurant, which is open for all three meals of the day, had such a fun and worldly variety of plates on the menu ranging from pork katsu, Scotch eggs made with locally sourced sausage, to Spanish tinned sardines imported from Spain. I ordered the lamb meatballs served with grilled eggplant, curried lentils, feta, cucumber salad, and yogurt, and was really blown away by the combination of flavors, the spice of the lamb, and the texture of the eggplant. I could honestly say that I wasn’t sure what I enjoyed more, the eggplant or the meatballs. And the craziest thing was that only a few of the tables in the small restaurant were occupied. If this same restaurant were in New York, I’d bet that it would be packed to the brim by the time I left at around 7:30.

It’s fun, eclectic places like this that keep me going during my work travel, even in places that initially may not seem to be the most exciting. You really have to do little things for yourself while traveling alone to make it more bearable and interesting.

I’m in Atlanta today and tomorrow for customer meetings and for a customer marketing event we’re co-hosting tonight. Because of this, I have three different colleagues who are joining me from New York today. One of them happened to be booked on my same flight to Atlanta, as well as the same hotel in downtown. We sat together and chatted before our flight boarded, and I tried my best to be as patient as possible as she made up all these excuses for what she probably thinks she should be doing, but she isn’t. She’s likely going to be traveling at least 1-2 times a month for customer marketing events, yet she’s not loyal to any one airline (she is split among American, Jet Blue, and Alaska). Her trips are never more than 1-2 days long, yet she insisted today that between her and her husband (who travels maybe 1-2 times a month for work), they just “don’t have time” to travel for personal unless it’s a wedding/major family event because they both travel a lot for work (or so they think).

While I was listening to all these excuses she was making, I said absolutely nothing. I’m not even certain she was aware she was even making excuses. I sat, half smiling, occasionally nodding. It’s as though I was sitting there, bearing witness to her out-loud thoughts about all the things she should or could be doing, but she isn’t doing… perhaps due to one (or several, or all) of the following: 1) lack of planning, 2) lack of desire to plan, 3) lack of desire to travel for fun and maximize travel, 4) lack of willingness to admit that maybe, just maybe she and her husband just… don’t like to travel for pleasure. And that last part is actually okay! But can we all just be honest with ourselves?

So, she then proceeded to ask me about my travel plans for the summer. I told her we just got back from Colombia. I was in Miami last week for work, will be in Atlanta obviously this week for work, then Michigan next week. I have pending trips to Boston for work. At the end of this month through the first week of July, we’ll be in Asia, then in mid-August, we have another personal trip planned to Canada. My husband travels nearly every single week, and I travel at least 1-2 times a month, but the only reason I ever say I “travel a lot” is because of the combination of work and pleasure travel. I don’t really think traveling 1-2 times a month for work is a lot. But maybe that’s just me since everything is always relative. We make our trips happen because we plan out nearly our entire year in advance and block off dates. Work isn’t our life. We like to travel, and therefore, we make sure travel is part of our life.

She was really impressed with what I shared with her. “Wow, that’s such a smart thing to do!” she exclaimed, as I told her how we planned things out. “That also is so much work.”

Is it, really? Aren’t we supposed to work to make things that matter in our life happen?

I don’t expect everyone I know or like or chat with to want to travel. But, I’d like to think that everyone is honest with themselves. Sadly, this is clearly not the case.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Atlanta for a customer meeting where I will be presenting. I’m also taking one of my colleagues along who I am mentoring since he’s a newbie. Since he’s merely there to shadow me and will not actually be presenting, this is basically a work trip for him where he’s not responsible for anything. Isn’t that fun — to be able to travel for work and not actually do any work?

And well, he’s planning to go to the World of Coca Cola while I’m doing meeting prep. Doesn’t he have the life?

This afternoon, I took a break to meet with a San Francisco colleague’s friend who is interested in working at our company. We had coffee together over lattes, I shared with her information about the company, what my role was like, and my general work experiences.

While we were chatting, though, I was thinking about the latte I was drinking with her, and I realized that although it was good, it really paled in comparison to that incredibly smooth and rich latte I had in Bogota just four days before. I felt bad even thinking about it, but I couldn’t help but think about how satisfying every single sip of that Bogota latte was, even after it was no longer hot.

This is really how travel can ruin you.

I scheduled my flight to come back to New York at around 3:30 today so that I’d be able to have time to watch the sun rise along the beach, do a beach run, exercise, eat breakfast, and lazily make myself over to the MIA airport this morning. While I got to do and enjoy all of that since all my customer meetings were yesterday, what I did not enjoy was the total traffic jam that welcomed me back as I got into my Uber in the LaGuardia parking lot this afternoon at around 4pm. My driver and I moved about a few inches every few minutes for over 40 minutes. we had basically gotten from one end of the parking lot to the other, never actually exiting until we reached about 45 minutes of being in the exact same line. I was so irritated.

I guess I could have scheduled an earlier flight back, especially since the sun rises at 6:30 at this time of the year, but I was just being lazy. That laziness ultimately cost me probably an hour in excess waiting time to get back home…. definitely cannot do that again given the LGA construction situation.

Going to and from Colombia, we actually connected in Miami. So, you’d think that if I wanted to be somewhat sensible that I just would have stayed in Miami on Monday night since I’d have to come back on Tuesday for work, but nope, I didn’t. Instead, I flew back to New York late Monday night, slept in my own bed that night, then woke up and took an 11:30am flight back to Miami for my three-day work trip.

I was telling my colleagues this today, and they both thought I was crazy. “Why would you do that?” they both asked me. Well, this trip was already booked back in January, and it’s a personal trip. And if I stayed in Miami that night, I would likely have to pay the hotel out of pocket since I wasn’t really there for work at that time, and… well, who wants to do that? And I guess I can always use more miles because why not?

While on our day trip to Guatape this past Saturday, we spoke a lot with our guide and driver Luis about local life in Medellin, Colombia, and Guatape, as well as his observations when traveling. He also travels quite a bit and has visited the U.S., including New York City. As we were sitting down at lunch in the town of Guatape on Saturday and are enjoying a refajo, freshly squeezed passion fruit juice, and a limonada de coco (coconut limeade), we marveled to him about how good all the local fruits in Colombia are and how much we love this juice, especially with its nice frothy top. He agreed, saying that he loves the local fruit and especially loves mango and blackberries (funnily enough, blackberry juice (de-seeded) is extremely common in Colombia, always seen on the list of juices to choose from at fresh juice squeezing stands, yet in the U.S., that’s pretty much unheard of. “Can I just say that the orange juice in the U.S. is just terrible,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know what that is, but it is not juice from orange.”

We also laughed and agreed. I explained to him that the multiple types and level of processing and pasteurization of the oranges used for juice, predominantly sourced from Florida, basically ruined the flavor of the orange juice, resulting in that disgusting processed flavor. Even when juices say “100% juice” on the label, they’ve deconstructed that orange and made “flavorings” out of the orange that although are artificial, because they are somewhat derived from oranges, no company is required to label their bottles with “additives” or “artificial flavoring.” The food laws in the U.S…. are questionable and sad. In the end, it doesn’t taste anything like the fresh juice you can reliably get in Colombia (or really, any other country) at all.

Yep, in Colombia, you get fresh, real food. In the U.S., we get processed everything. Not everything is better in the land of the rich and “free.”