i actually burned a cd yesterday.. a boot disk for a utility.
only to find the system i needed it for didn't support legacy boot, and the boot image didn't have uefi support.
i had to take out an audio cd to burn it.. so yea, cd do get used here.. occasionally. probably been a year or more since that audio cd had been played.
that 'designated distro' for newcomers used to be ubuntu. probably still is. as much as i'd want to say mint or some other variant of ubuntu or debian that i happen to like.. 'one man shows' and distros with very small teams aren't what a new user should be going with. there's a reason why so many base off ubuntu. it's big. it's solid. and it just works.
keep doing what you're doing; if you need to get whatever runs in windows out of a vm and on 'bare metal'--get a separate system for that and network the two to share files, if needed.
give it time. the government (us) wants to put interlock gadgets into every new car to prevent drunks from driving. driving under the influence is illegal and those that do are more likely to kill someone. so is driving without a license, and so are those drivers.
how are you traveling? snakes on a plane; airplane!; speed; planes, trains and automobiles; air force one; pelham 123..., all good 'pre-trip' movies, and each worthy of a re-watch.