Ok kiddies, gather ’round.  Here begins the tale of my trip to Wales, as written in my travel journal and transcribed here, on the blog.  As a guideline, I will do this on a journal-day-per-blog-entry basis, except where either the entry was very short — in which case I will combine a few together — or very long — in which case I will break it up.  Logical, innit?

In this first case, there was a large span of time, about 12 hours, between entries, and the events of which made it feel like a week or more.  So, I broke it up.

Here we go.

Journal Entry — September 14th: Departure

Sitting in the Austin airport, having fast-tracked (surprisingly) through check-in, sailed through security and procured a seat at my gate (#6).  I’m way the hell early, I have upwards of 2½ hours before my flight takes off.  I’m texting last minute details to Pandora, Lady and GonzO, IM-ing with Sweets and trying not to let my rampant imagination run off and think about all the horrible things that can happen to the human body when a plane crashes.

I was going to resume reading my book, but then I remembered this fantastic travel journal that Pandora just gave me.  So, here I write.

The airport is shockingly quiet and empty… I think everyone is at ACL.  There are constant announcements overhead that are so distorted that they may as well not even bother.  All the other waiting passengers seem to be business folk — laptops and Blackberries at the ready — typing, talking and taking space.  Every so often a dried-up biker chick will walk past, all tattoos, big hair, jeans and heels, looking for all the world like she was rid hard and put up wet.

I’m traveling to Wales to see Sweets.  I’m swallowing my inherent distrust of man-made things with potential to kill me (i.e. airplanes) and making this trip — likely the first of many depending on what the future holds.  In a year she may be living with me and going to TCA for more culinary training.  We’ll be playing house full-time and that will be the true test to see if we can tolerate living in the same space together.

Sweets is young but very mature.  I’m older and immature — a late bloomer in the grand scheme of things.  We meet somewhere in the middle, thankfully.  We have a lot in common, but a tremendous amount of differences.  The cultural divide is huge, but oddly serves to fuel our fascination with each other.  She bakes, likes to read (a lot!) and is a gentle spirit.  She’s a geek-girl and very feminine without being too “girly” — she has just a touch of tomboy in her.  She embodies many of the things I value in a girl, especially one I want to be close to.

And she’s nuts about me.

I’m as shocked as anyone!  I have to say, I’m equally crazy about her.

Gonna stop writing, my forearm is sore… I’m out of practice.