As some of you have seen on Facebook by now, we lied and are not in Southeast Asia yet. Instead we spontaneously flew home to LA from Barcelona and surprised our families for Thanksgiving! This wasn’t part of our original plan, but then again we didn’t really have anything set in stone and left our itinerary open for a reason.
Thanksgiving is my extended family’s (on my dad’s side) biggest holiday and one that I look forward to each and every year. I have never ever missed a Solomon Thanksgiving, so it was hard for me leaving on this trip knowing I would have to miss it, especially knowing my grandparents are getting older. So we while we were in Tuscany, Italy, we started playing around with ideas about where to go next. We had planned out the next few weeks in Spain and at that point our 90 days in Europe were up. Our original plan was to fly directly to SE Asia but I decided to check out what flights were like back to LAX just for fun and we ended up finding a super cheap one (shoutout to Norweigian Air here). After playing around with dates and locations, we figured if we flew to LA and then to Asia, it wasn’t going to be that much more expensive than flying directly from Europe (just a little more flight time). So we decided it would be pretty epic if we flew home and surprised our families with them having the mindset we were on the other side of the world. This would also give us time to repack for SE Asia, recharge before another three months on the road, and get our family holiday time fix since we would be missing Christmas/Hanukkah and NYE.
And we’re glad we did! I couldn’t sleep for several nights after we booked the flight home because I was so excited and kept replaying what the surprise “reaction” moment would be like as well as sorting out details for when we get to LA. Al started to get super excited as well at the thought of surprising his family, and getting to bring his laptop this time around (computer nerd…)
I brought my brother Matt in on our plan so he could leave car keys out for us when we arrived back in Agoura and Al enlisted his Aunt Julie so that she could make plans with his mom so she would be available when we came to her house. Shoutout to Matt and Julie for helping the surprise run smoothly!
We boarded our 1:30 PM flight from Barcelona and anxiously sat through an 11 and 1⁄2 hour flight. Al enjoyed his gluten free meals again and I watched back to back to back movies to kill time. At LAX, we were happily surprised that we managed to get through customs, get our luggage, and get in an Uber in only half an hour ON THE WED BEFORE THANKSGIVING. But then again, we arrived via the international terminal so maybe this is why. Our Uber to Agoura only took around an hour and traffic was light. We were anticipating the worst so being home by around 6:30 PM was amazing.
It was weird being back in the states - especially having everyone around us speak English and gain back our familiarity of things. We ordered pizza, I baked brownies (for Thanksgiving the next day) and we fought the jet lag and forced ourselves to stay up until 9 PM (really like 6 AM Europe time). Sleeping in my own very clean and comfy bed in pure peace and quiet was a treat and we passed out.
The next morning we shot out of bed around 5:30 AM (body clocks still a bit off) got ready and drove to Palm Springs where my whole dad’s side of the family was gathered for our annual Thanksgiving weekend. We are nicknamed the “loud family” so the fact that this surprise was kept a secret was pretty impressive. Matt had told my grandma so that she could put our names on the list to get into the gated community and then somehow the guard gate ended up telling my uncle and cousins that we were coming, so a few people knew. But it was still a shocker to my other family members, especially my parents!
After two eventful and special days in Palm Springs, we said goodbye to my family and drove to Tustin to surprise Al’s mom. As we walked in her house, an alarm went off (door system makes a noise every time door is opened) so she thought someone was breaking in for a second until she saw us and screamed in surprise. It was hilarious and we got it all on video! Shoutout to Al’s Mom for having such an epic reaction.
We spent two wonderful and relaxing days with Al’s Mom and Aunt Julie and even tested out our Italian cooking skills one night (it was good food but they still need a little improving).
Then we headed back to Agoura for an additional two days with my family. During this time we managed to surprise my other grandparents and exchange our packs for smaller ones (we’re doing carry on this time and were sick of lugging around such big bags). It was pretty cool that we got a full refund on the packs we just used for the last 3 months - REI rocks!
All in all, we will have only been home a week but it felt so much longer. We bought our ticket to Vietnam ahead of time so we wouldn’t get too comfortable at home and are leaving tonight on a 14 hour flight to Taiwan where we have a layover and then an additional flight to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Our time at home with family was much needed and the 15 hour commute from Spain was totally worth it! We ate all our favorite, familiar foods and have been non-stop stuffed while at home and have seen how easy it is to fall back into old habits and get out of the “travel bubble.” When we come back for good, we will need to set reminders and be more conscious of remembering and utilizing the things we learned and realized while abroad.
I am especially nervous for this next leg of the trip because I have no idea what to expect since I’ve never been to this part of the world. But this is also exciting and I think will be of a more shocking, life changing experience. Not sure how our Wifi will be but we will try our best to continue with timely updates.
Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!
Now we are really off to Vietnam!