I just landed Jakarta, after 14 + 8 hrs flights with 3 hrs layover in Dubai. It felt long and I was very uncomfortable (wanting to sleep but couldn’t find a position that I could stay asleep). I’m glad I’m back.
During the last 10 days, I was on a go-go-go pace. No time to meditate, no time to journal, no time to pause and reflect. There are so many people to meet, things to buy, in between full day of activities organized by the forum. As the days go, my exhaustion accumulated and by Wednesday I was eager to go home and rest. Yet, overall it was a productive trip.
High: morning runs in dc, chill, beautiful scenery. Although I was supposed to rest after the race, I asked coach’s permission to do easy runs and rest once in Jakarta. I wanted to enjoy as much as possible in this weather and beautiful dc. Even on my return day, I run 10 miles with a colleague at 5am. When we came back, the other teams were already checked out waiting for taxi. They thought I was crazy but I had to have a long run before I took off. I prepared everything the night before so took me 10 min to join them.
I enjoyed the peace in dc. After living in Asia for 6 years, I’m so used to chaos, noise, people. DC is ghost town compared to Asia.
I enjoyed meeting with friends and colleagues. With two of my best friends we managed to see each other twice even with my packed schedule because 2 hrs were not enough.
Another highlight was to get to hear gossips, to know what’s the latest with internal politics. I could say it was also low because it felt too much in such short period of time. I didn’t have time to digest and felt overwhelmed. HQ has much more gossip, most of the time unnecessary, than country offices. After absorbing all of them, I am even more glad to be outside of HQ.
Final highlight: shopping success. I got some casual and athletic cloth for me, some clothes for the family, and a lot of Trader Joe’s snacks. I am always too ambitious when buying and ended up asking two team members their luggage space. 🙂
Lows: jet lag is brutal. I was not functional for 5 days. even when I was adapted, I was still sleeping way less than usual, contributing to my exhaustion.
Too much gossip, negativity from some colleagues, venting about others.
Missing the family. Fortunately during this trip I was in constant direct communication with Sofia as I gave her a phone with WhatsApp. we also FaceTime twice a day even for few minutes. It was great that all went well, nobody got sick, and not too much complains.
Our New Journey 
I’m glad the trip had many highs. But that is a LONG flight and then to be ‘on’ and really busy would be a tough combo. The running pics are beautiful! I got to run in DC last July when I was presenting at a conference and it was such a stunning run!
LikeLike
Happy to see that you had a wonderful trip. The jet lag sounds absolutely brutal. What is your connection to the US? You mentioned you have friends here, did you go to a university here?
LikeLike
I went to grad school in the US and lived there since 2006 until I left to the Philippines in 2017. My daughters were born there.
LikeLike
An international trip like this is always stressful. Exhilarating, but also draining. You try to cramp so much into very little time, but that is how it goes if you want to make the most of it. I am glad you had a great trip overall and can now relax an recuperate a little bit.
LikeLike