Business Trips, Politics, and Family

Background: I just returned from a business trip to New Jersey and Manhattan. Simultaneously, I’m continuing my obsession with the political race. Finally, I just received an email from my father, who with my mother has only visited me once in the eight years I’ve been in California, to mention that they have free tickets to San Francisco, and are starting to think about a visit.

The dream:

I’m on a business trip to Alaska. It’s a pretty routine trip in the dream [dream confusion: regular trips to Microsoft's home in Redmond, with an Alaskan location], and on the plane ride I discover two colleagues also making the regular jaunt, as well as my father going on a leisure trip.

The plane ride is in a small plan (sitting about 40 of us), with a pilot who is totally disinterested in customer service. He waits until everyone is standing, putting their luggage in the overhead bins, and immediately takes off without warning, going almost straight up on a steep incline. We all grab onto things, and scramble to our seats. [hmm, residual stress about flying making its appearance?]

We arrive, and I grab my carryon, which is all I brought for my three-night trip. As we get off, I see tons of people picking up their luggage from the carousel. Their luggage all consists of gigantic crates of fruit, especially grapes. I regret not bringing the same, and wonder what sort of fresh fruit and vegetables I’ll be able to eat in the fish-dominated Alaskan cuisine. [pssst. I'm vegetarian]

I invite my colleagues and my father to join me at my 5-star hotel, since they’re only visiting for a shorter time and thus have worse lodging. I’m disappointed by the hotel itself, since Anchorage seems like a 1950’s style city, full of dated and ugly buildings. [is it really? no idea.]

As the trip begins, I try to fit one day of sight seeing in, since I’ve heard Alaska is beautiful. I ask my father to check out parks for me, and I plan a drive through Wasilla to see what sort of tiny suburban sprawl town it really is. [thus bringing in politics into the dream, uniting many events].