Day One

Been sometime since I last blogged. Havent seen a reason to, but now I guess there is.

I can safely say I am nicely tucked in my apartment, after the hustle and bustle of the past few days.

Slept only a few hours on Saturday night. Took my own sweet time to pack, and in between the rounds of Element TD and packing, the hours passed. Hit the bed only at 3.10 am, and set the clock for a mere 50 minutes later. We got to the airport, looking forward to a speedy check in, but this greeted us instead:

KAN NI NA

Seems that there were a shitload of other people taking the same flight. The huge crowds around the check in counter were the send-off armies of, I assume, some dragon year kids flying off to the states to study.

Just like me.

But I’m different, am I?

Anyway it was a 3 plus hour flight to Hong Kong for my first stop. Nothing much to see there, except the Honkie version of Guardian which I found amusing:

I assumed that I was going to have hard time on the plane given the flight length (longest airplane journey ever in my life), so I decided to invest in a few books. Bought Stephen King’s Duma Key, and a Sudoku book. The latter proved to be more useful of the 2, allowing me to burn an our or so in Chicago where my flight was delayed. As for Duma Key, I haven’t started on it, and I don’t know whether I will…….

The flight from Hong Kong to Chicago was hell. Firstly, the fucking Honkie that checked my handcarry luggage was a total NAZI. In front to a long line of people, she fucking pulled a BMT all-in-all-out routine, emptying the contents of my bags for the fucking world to see. And to add insult to injury she even got me to take my shoes off and check them, AND got me to switch on my laptop.

So what the hell now. My laptop’s a bomb? Give me a break.

United has absolutely no inflight entertainment, and the movies they played on the overhead projectors in the plane were cheesy and were honestly fucked up. Not to mention that for the first half of Prince Caspian, the projector was shaking like a bellydancer. Tried to do some Sudoku, but I felt too drained. Instead I sought comfort in the confines of my own head, trying to get some sleep here and there.

Which actually worked.

I dove in and out of sleep, waking up for meals, snacks and drinks, and watched the odd show here and there. Getting off the plane was a relief. And to my surprise, clearing US customs was not as hard or as difficult as the immigration people made it out to be. It was a pleasant surprise. Checked in my baggage and headed to Chicago Terminal 2 to wait for my connecting flight to Detroit. I was bloody thirsty so I hit the first joint I could see for a drink. Starbucks! Had an Iced Tea with Lemonade. Slightly Sweetened.

Iced Tea with Lemonade. Sounded alien when it was on the board. Must have been the fatigue kicking in because its nothing more than ICE LEMON TEA MAH.

Burned half an hour queuing for macdonalds, and ate a grilled chicken burger. Not bad. The patty was real grilled chicken and it was huge. Along with a slab of bacon, cheese and lettuce, it was a welcome snack. (They forgot to remove the mayo, the bastards)

Burned 2 hours after that watching Hustle on my laptop. Wanted to hook up onto the internet, but the opportunists that run Chicago O Hare charge for Wi Fi even though there are so many signs that say “WI-FI enabled in the terminal”. Sans the word “Free”, I could only plug in my laptop to charge the batteries and be entertained by Mickey Stone, Danny Blue and gang.

Hit the gate at 5 plus as the flight was due at 535 pm. Delay.

Many of the passengers there were visibly agitated at the delay, because it was nearly 9 before we were able to get onto the flight. Sitting there for those few hours, I realized something. The Sudoku book was actually able to keep me there for 2 -3 hours, glued to the puzzles and not lose my cool. I think maybe in this case Sudoku actually works for me as a concentration builder. Try it! You never know………

Got off at Detroit and got into a cab. Got into more drama again.

The cab was a van, and I had one guy with me who apparently needed to be dropped off at one of the airport terminals. When he got off, he got into a quarrel with the taxi driver. He refused to pay for the trip because the taxi driver wanted to charge him 18 bucks for a 5 minute ride. And the taxi driver was actually pissed off.

Thick nigger skulls does not equal brains.

We had trouble finding the Northwood apartments, even with GPS enabled in the taxi. The nigger actually went into a closed street, and got STOPPED BY THE COPS.

A taxi driver stopped by cops. That was a really lucky day.

Waited ten minutes for him to settle the summon, then proceeded to the Northwood apartments. The problem was, I did not arrange for my keys to be picked up after hours, and the office was closed. Well, this was because I did not anticipate my flight to have such an extraordinary delay. To put it simply, I was screwed. No key, no place to sleep for the night, and worse of all NO TRANSPORT. Accosted an other student and asked for his help. Toshiya-san’s a Stats PHD student who drives an Accord and listens to Sum 41. Nice guy. He helped my make some calls, but it seems the Residential Assistants, ( here they call them Aides) don’t have master keys for the apartments. Asked Toshiya-san if I could crash at his place, but he actually called a friend who had a spare room to put me in for the night. Ended up somewhere else, and bummed the night over there.