Chicago is Overrated Anyway

Around a week or two ago I learned of the potential for a week-long meeting that would have brought me home to Chicago for a completely unexpected trip. This morning I learned that that meeting was no longer taking place.

Even though I had no intention of returning to the U.S. until some point in October for a planned home leave trip, I was looking forward to an "extra" trip that would have enabled me to see family and friends and now find myself somewhat homesick for the first time. The stars seemed to be truly aligning; my little sister was going to be at home for the July 4th holiday weekend and a great friend that had moved from Chicago was actually going to be in town the weekend I would have arrived.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of tricking my mind into thinking I was two weeks from returning to the states. The "new" reality is that I'm still four plus months from visiting home, which was always the plan. Regardless, I still feel like I've lost something even though it never technically existed.

On the bright side, things could be a lot worse. There are a lot of familiar people, both professionally and personally, that will be making appearances in the greater Delhi area over the next three months. Plus, this frees up a holiday weekend in India (we basically follow U.S. holidays in the office so the 4th of July is a holiday here as well) to travel. Lindsay will actually be back in the states for one of her best friend's (or maybe it's her best friend, I'm not sure and would hate to offend anyone) wedding over the holiday weekend (quick note, we do actually like one another, she just has considerably more vacation than I do this year) so I'll be traveling alone for the first time in some time.

Ideally, I'd like to keep it to four nights at most, don't feel the need to just "see" a city, don't mind exerting physical effort, do fairly well at elevation, and am open to leaving India. Any suggestions or ideas on places that fit this criteria? And yes, I realize that criteria don't get much more general. As long as it's a reasonable flight (and yes, "reasonable" has a flexible definition depending on how interesting the destination), I'm game.

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