Tag: San Francisco

Postcards from Home Leave 2019

After wrapping up our second diplomatic tour in Australia, we spent the entire month of August on mandatory home leave in the United States, where I hadn’t been in 25 months (my longest time out yet).

As I described in my previous post, we spent the first week of our four-week home leave in Honolulu, Hawaii, where neither V nor I had ever been. We drove just over 300 miles around the island, and then we flew to California, where we threw our eight suitcases into a Nissan Pathfinder and spent three more weeks visiting family, friends, and touristing our way through California, Oregon, and Washington. Here are a few snapshots and highlights from the “mainland” part of our home leave, in which we drove 1,700+ miles through three states, after flying 7,683 miles from Canberra to Sydney to Honolulu to Sacramento.

7,572 Miles Later…

My husband and I were at San Francisco International Airport on a warm night in late July. Bags checked, phone calls made, dinner enjoyed, black passports in hand. Time to go. I strolled up to the departure gate in a long queue of passengers for the flight to Sydney, trying to appear nonchalant. In the pit of my stomach was this dread that one of the eagle-eyed Qantas gate agents would confront me about my carry-on baggage weighing two dozen kilos above the limit. They were all the right dimensions, but if anyone lifted them, they would have been aghast.

Epic Surprises 

The baggage carousel jerked to life, and the second bag that trundled up the belt was mine. “Right out of the gate, that never happens!” I exclaimed to the man next to me. “Well, all right,” he responded with a smile. I had landed in San Francisco on a Saturday mid-morning after a fairly comfortable 11.5 hour flight from Seoul. However, I hadn’t slept for two nights in a row, and I still had a three hour drive ahead of me.

The 41 Hour Saturday

Two Friday nights ago after work, I flew so far to the east that I ended up west, jumping four time zones ahead between Tashkent and Seoul, and then 17 more time zones backwards as I continued in the same direction towards San Francisco. I was en route door to door for about 36 hours. Unfortunately for me I only slept about 90 minutes cumulatively during the two overnights I transited. Because I was chasing the sun and then fleeing the sun, I ended up with possibly the longest Saturday of my life.

First Wedding Anniversary

Seven years and nine months ago tonight, I went on my first date with a guy who I didn’t really know, but from whom I soon would become inseparable. And then one year ago today, I donned an enormous dress. I walked down the aisle of Evangelisch-Lutherische St. Matthäus-Kirche in San Francisco, California, and pledged to…

Sarah W Gaer

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