I know that I’m in the middle of a blog series (one that I’m about a day behind on), but it is generally a tradition of mine to mention my travel itineraries on my blog for people who care enough about me to follow, and I realized that I haven’t done so yet here on my blog for my winter break round trip.

As I just (mostly) finished packing for this trip, I actually found doing so a bit interesting. Coming from my home in the Bay Area here to DC back in August was a major expedition, pretty much equivalent to moving house. (Hence why I gave it the codename “Operation Uproot.”) But packing to head back home is really more like packing to go on a vacation. I’m only taking one suitcase plus a carry-on, as opposed to last August when I had two bags, a carry-on, and a huge package shipped ahead of time. Since I’m not changing dorms next semester, a lot of my stuff is staying here, since home will already have most of the amenities I need (not to mention free food).

I’m sure this seems like “well, duh” to most of my readers, but it feels very bizarre to me, noting that I haven’t taken long vacations to visit family anytime before in my life. (Well, once in 1995, but I have no memories of that.) It’s also weird how I’m packing for my return home the way that I would normally pack for leaving from home. But, I digress.

Today (Tuesday) is going to be a long 14-hour travel day. About eight hours from now (yes, I know, I need to go to sleep), I’ll be hopping on the AU shuttle over to the Tenleytown-AU Metro stop that I know so well. From there, I’ll be on the Red line to Fort Totten (yes, the infamous Fort Totten where that big crash happened last June; but I’ve ridden through there many times now, so no worries), and transfer to the Green line to Greenbelt, Maryland, getting there at 11:07. (The Green line goes to Greenbelt, and I’ve always wondered if that was a coincidence or not.) From there I hop on an express Metrobus to Baltimore/Washington Airport, getting there at 11:48.

I will be flying on Southwest Airlines flight 3930, departing Baltimore at 1:40 PM EST, and arriving in Oakland at 6:25 PM PST. Yep, it’s almost an eight-hour flight, thanks to the fact that it stops in–of all places–Albuquerque, New Mexico at 4:15 PM MST. Random, but oh well. From OAK, I then will have about an hour and a half of time where I will be taking BART over to Millbrae, where my folks will pick me up. Yeah, I get to ride Metro and BART on the same day–cool!

I get to enjoy a 23-day vacation at home, and will be flying back out on January 8th. That schedule will be an insane one, as I’m going to have to try to catch a 6:50 AM flight out of Oakland. Might not be able to take BART for that one. That’s Southwest flight 517, and it arrives at Chicago Midway (a much more sensible place) at 1:00 PM CST, where I make a connection to Southwest flight 2745 departing at 1:35 PM CST and arriving at Baltimore at 4:20 PM EST. The trip back to the AU campus is the exact opposite of today’s itinerary.

So there’s my travel plans; head on over to your flight trackers if you’re so interested. ;)