Halo para pemirsa blog sekalian (kayak ada aja yg baca blog ini :D)..

Maklumin ya,, blog ini sepiiii banget,, berhubung salah satu yang empunya sibuk travel,, huehehehe.. Pulang travel panjang,, eh sakit,, jadi lah belum sempet2 ngapdet2.. (alessssaaan deh)..

Ceritanya begini,, misoaku ditinggal selama 4 bulan,, karena istri dan anaknya melanglang buana keliling dunia,, asli dah bener2 ngitarin bola dunia,, sampe puyeng yeng yeeeeng..  mulai dari Amrik ke Indo lewat pantai barat, dari Indo ke Eropa ke arah barat juga,, dan dari Eropa balik ke Amrik juga ke arah barat,, ngeeeeng ngeeeng ngeeeng (loh,, kok kayak maen mobil2an yak hehehe)..

Dimulai dari awal Juli 2008,, dari Houston-LA-Taipei-Jakarta,, total perjalanan 36 jam (sajah!!!),, dan berdua dengan Amira (sajah!!) dan bagasi hanya 100 pounds plus satu carry on (sajah!!).. Coba dibayangkan sodara2.. betapa badan ini rasanya diremuk2,,  Tapi alhamdulillah suami tersayang sudah memesan hotel di Jakarta, jadi nyampe Jakarta langsung bleg,, eh gak ding,, Amira gitu nyampe kamar hotel langsung bouncing2 di tpt tidur,, kasian,, abis selama di perjalanan gak bisa maen2,, sempit di pesawat terus.. Yang dari Houston ke LA sih alhamdulillah ok ok aja,, cuman 3 jam.. yang dari LA-Taipei juga,, walaupun (cuman) 13 jam,, tapi karena take offnya jam 1 malem,, jadi Amiranya kebanyakan tidur di pesawat.. Naaaah,, yang dari Taipei ke Jakarta dooooooongg.. take offnya jam 8 pagi waktu Taipei,, dan Amira udah kenyang tidur,, jadilah dia minta maen,, sementara pesawat rada penuh,, dia gak mau makan, gak mau digendong, gak mau tidur, gak mau ngapa2in,, mau keluar dari pesawat coba,, Naak,, emang mak mu ini The Incridible atau Superwoman?

Yah itu baru cerita sebagian dari perjalanan paaaaaanjang kami berdua,, ntar deh kalo sempet ditulis cerita2 Amira selama di Indo,, Yang jelas,, kami alhamdulilah sudah berkumpul lagi bertiga.. dan hmm ya.. ada update2 terbaru setelah ini..

Ok deh,, stay tune yaaaa..

This time it’s real.. unlike Gustav, Ike is actually set up and ready to go to ravage Houston as a Cat 3 hurricane. After my zipcode was told evacuate, I packed my documents and important data, some clothes and food and fleed to College Station. The Rita nightmare, where evacuees were stranded for 36 hours on the highway, thankfully did not happen. I only spent 4 hours on the road on the way to CS. All hotels were booked, it was a miracle that I actually got 4 nights reserved at a hotel.

Can’t understand why people wouldn’t evacuate, even after told that Ike is ‘certain death’ for those who don’t.. I hope we’ll be able to recover from this.

Tonight, the show begins as Ike makes landfall at Galveston. A few hours later, Houston will get hit as us evacuees keep a close eye on any hurricane news.

Tau

31 May 08, 2 am

We checked out of the hotel, got in the Dodge truck we rented for moving, and drove to LAX. As I drove away from the gate, I quietly said a goodbye to my home of the last 4 years. Almy and Amira fell asleep along the way. Highway 14 seemed really quiet at that hour. After only 90 minutes we dropped off the car at the Westin LAX Hotel and boarded the shuttle to the airport.

The usual humdrum of checking-in felt routine.. with a small realization in my heart that I’m finally leaving California for good. Amira was wide awake at this moment. The timing was perfect, we arrived at the gate around 5 am, where we ate breakfast, prayed Subuh/Fajr before boarding the 6am flight.
We arrived at Hobby Airport around 2pm. After securing yet another rental car, it was finally time to put that $400 GPS to work. I punched in La Quinta Seabrook and off we went. Only later on I realized that the GPS couldn’t account for highway constructions and detours, so I had to figure out an alternate way of getting there.

45 minutes later, we arrived exhausted, yet glad that the journey was over. It was ~4pm in Seabrook, TX. Amira was wide awake (since she slept all through the trip) and started playing around with my cheapo noise-cancellation headphones.

So it was a Sunday in California and we were going to move within a week, and we decided to do one last trip to one of the popular tourist spots in Long Beach — the Queen Mary. After a huge meal at the Cheesecake Factory in Redondo Beach, we drove there with the help of our GPS. The weather didn’t look promising at first, but thankfully it cleared up.

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We went Santa Barbara a while ago to pay a visit to some friends of mine before I moved to Texas. I also thought it would be a good opportunity for Amira to see a Californian beach. She definitely liked it…