The Journey Begins

Well, it's started. I spent the past week packing half my stuff and throwing or giving away the other half. I miscalculated the amount of time it would take to finalize everything in Minnesota and I ended up moving everything that I kept to a storage unit the same day that my flight departed to Tenerife. I do not recommend that anyone else attempt something similar.

I sold my car, gave away most of my furniture, and threw out a dumpster worth of stuff. I spent a lot of time considering how I was going to store my remaining possessions for an indeterminate amount of time. After some research, I found an amazing, completely-automated, storage facility. I signed up online and through their app I can unlock and open the individual storage unit along with a large garage door that provides access to a huge garage with a plethora of carts and dollies. The entire process from renting the unit to filling the unit took place without any other human contact. It might be a little overkill for my needs, but I wouldn't have been able to move and catch my flight the same day without it. I made it to my departing flight four minutes before they closed the gate.

I bought some noise-cancelling headphones for my travels and even after all the glowing reviews I read I was blown away by their ability to reduce the noise of the plane engines to a whisper. Voices and other higher pitched sounds remain clear. It is surprising how well the headphones can target specific frequencies to remove unwanted noise in otherwise noisy environments. I highly recommend them for anyone who flies a lot. Unfortunately, it looks like the model that I purchased has been discontinued and, from what I've heard, the new model is not as good as the old one overall.

When I flew into Amsterdam on route to Tenerife, I was required pass through passport control. This is where my new passport received its first stamp. I was in the queue for 45 minutes and only made it halfway through the line before my flight to Tenerife was prioritized and I was able to skip the rest of the queue. A system that allows you to skip the line if your flight is imminent seems ripe for abuse.

On my flight to Amsterdam, I saw what I thought was the moon through one of the passenger windows. At first this made sense. The time in Minneapolis was about 4am. But, the local time was about 11am, so it couldn't be the moon. It was actually the sun on the dark blue background of a light dimming window. Very cool.

Once I arrived in Tenerife, I waited in another long line to get my rental car then started the drive to higher elevations. After getting lost a few times and discovering that house numbers are not in order on this island, some very steep and narrow one-lane roads lead me to my Airbnb a few minutes after midnight. My hosts greeted me and showed me around then offered me a delicious late night dinner which I ate while watching fireworks around the coastline below in celebration of the New Year.