Hello everyone! Today, I wanted to start out my yearly recap posts by doing the shortest of them, the travel recap.

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In the past few years, I’ve been incredibly fortunate in my life to be able to travel pretty regularly. This year I expected it to be the same, with several work trips and personal trips throughout the year. I was fully expecting to break the “record” of 5 trips last year even. Of course, that did not go to plan at all!

Even though I wasn’t able to travel as much this year, I’m grateful for the two trips I did have.

Also, as you can see, I’m doing Blogmas again this year! That means I’ll be blogging every day until Christmas. I’ve done Blogmas in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 so I am happy to be participating again in 2020.

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Houston Work Trip

The first trip I took this year was a work trip to Houston back in January. I worked for as an event planner at the time and was sent to handle Houston Marathon’s onsite needs. I adore the city of Houston, which has always been an amazing host when I’ve worked there in the past on a different event, and this trip was no different!

I remember the only “downside” of the trip was that I couldn’t stay at my usual hotel because this client wanted me at the headquarters hotel for this event. It was still an amazing hotel and the staff was great too, don’t get me wrong! This is just the musings of a very spoiled event planner after all. The Hilton Americas was a great hotel and has the most amazing restaurants.

The trip itself was good. This was, by far, the easiest onsite I’d ever done. There was really no need to be onsite, as no one had any issues that they needed me for. I travelled with the account manager so we just sat at the desk in the hotel lobby and did our normal work during our normal work hours as our coworkers still needed stuff from us. But after the normal workday was done and on Saturday morning there was no work because no one else was online so we just chatted. He gave AMAZING financial and career advice honestly.

Then, after hours when we were done working the desk we’d explore Houston a bit! We ate at the aquarium, wandered around downtown, and even bar hopped a bit one night. A lot of my previous onsite coworkers would often stay close to the hotel but we walked a bit further along than normal, so we really had quite a good time wandering around!

Overall, I’m so grateful that I was able to see Houston this year since my “usual” trip was cancelled due to the pandemic later in the year (April). Plus, it was my last work trip before I was furloughed and, eventually, terminated from my job so it was a good final onsite.

My Mexico Vacation

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The second, and final, trip I took in 2020 was my annual vacation to Mexico! For many years now I’ve made it a priority to go to Mexico to see my grandfather, visit family, and learn more about my parents’ home country. I hold these trips so close to my heart and greatly enjoy them.

This trip occurred during the final week of January and first week of February, so right before the pandemic. We started to hear about the virus but I didn’t have data in Mexico so we only knew what my uncle would share randomly, which was primarily that China had built that giant hospital in only a few days. I remember thinking that they were just trying to show off how fast they could build large buildings, not realizing that they actually needed the hospital. Speaking of the virus, my mom seems to think that she and I had the virus back during this time. I got sick on the flight home from Houston a week before flying out to Mexico. I took regular cold/flu meds during that week I was home before we left and when we got to Mexico my mom got a very strong flu. I don’t think it was the virus, I think it was just a bad flu that I caught but Houston was a hotspot at the time so I guess I can see how it was possible. However, no one else got sick around us, it was just us, so I don’t think it was! Although, now that I think about it, I remember we did see one or two people wearing masks at O’Hare in Chicago before flying out and thinking they were being overly dramatic so now I’m back in the “maybe” category.

Anyway, we flew into Mexico City and spent a few days there seeing family before heading out to Morelia in a neighboring state. We had a good few days at my grandfather’s country home in that area before we went back to Mexico City again. Then we also took a day trip to Morelos to go to a natural water park there. We always try to see something new when we go and this place was gorgeous.

We spent so much time with my grandfather, as he went with us to most places, including Morelos. I think this was such a beautiful blessing in many ways. For one, in general we always head home with the uncertainty about seeing him again as he is older and we worry. Two, with the ongoing pandemic and having lost my job, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to go see him again. I am so grateful for all the time I haven spent with him and my other family members in general. In fact, I did lose an aunt back in the spring (fuck cancer) so I was grateful we got to spend time with her during this trip and cheer her up a bit before she sadly passed.

I’m always going to be grateful for all the trips I’ve taken, but this one was very special.

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And those are my trips for 2020! Yes, only two and I’m so grateful for them. There is no way I would have risked traveling in the pandemic, so while I’m sad I didn’t get more trips in, I’m thankful for the ones I did get to enjoy early in the year.

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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