健司 in London
I got ridiculously sun-burned over the last two days instead of evenly tanned like i used to. I've spent too much time in-doors in chicago. I have no idea how I'm going to be able to ride the plane for 12 hours tonight en route to chicago with my back feeling like this ... it's going to be my own personal hell for sure. how horrible.
but i can't wait to get back to chi nonetheless... i feel like i've been away for a whole week.
It's been a harrowing couple weeks of travel. Last week, I traveled out to New Hampshire, which turned out to be much more invigoratingly beautiful than had been anticipated. On the way out, I missed my flight by minutes (possibly seconds), partially because of my own stupidity and partially because O'hare is so horribly laid out that I found myself sprinting through an underground laser-light-show to get to my gate, which was about a half-mile from the security check point. Then, on the way back I ended up getting stuck in the Manchester airport for 6 hours due to rain delays in the midwest. While it was a quaint little airport to be trapped in (aren't most things in the New England area typically described as "little" and "quaint"?), it was still 6 freaking hours. I fell asleep face first in a book on a little table near my gate that i was sitting at and woke up in a panic that I had missed my flight. But no, I still had TWO more hours to wait. O'hare is quickly becoming the bane of my to-date short little existence. Last weekend I flew home for my grandma's funeral.
Then after a quick but exhausting week of work (I took Friday off, which I think was good; all this flying around is starting to kill me), I boarded a plane in Chicago to fly all the way to Hawaii for a three day trip. Yes, that is as ridiculous as it sounds. From my desk in the office to my bed at my uncles house in Hawaii-kai, i was traveling for 16 hours. SIXTEEN! that's crazy talk. And o'hare almost killed me again. Because of weather on the EAST coast that had been causing delays, they inexplicably halted all WEST bound traffic too, I think just to piss us off, and we were delayed an hour and a half. This was particularly bad because I had a connecting flight to catch back in LAX to make it to honolulu to begin with. And that connecting flight was not on United (the first leg of my trip), but on ATA. The layout of LAX is such that the United terminals are exactly diagonal across the airport from the ATA terminal, so I had my work cutout for me in making it on time to my flight. Then we got delayed and I was about to rip someone's throat out. But it turns out things were somehow fine. The girl next to me on the plane was actually also from Yorba Linda, so we had a pleasant, innocuous chat about growing up in the YL and going to whatever schools we went to. I faded in and out of sleeping and reading this Haruki Murakami book that Jen gave me that is extremely well written, entertaining, and disorientingly enigmatic. Our flight ended up landing about 30 minutes early, buying me extra time, and LAX was empty. I rode the "A" bus around the airport to terminal 3, re-checked in, re-passed through security, and got to the gate in time to enjoy a viciously over-priced whopper value meal from burger king. the highlight of my day! after all the airports around the country I've traveled through the last few months, it's sad to say that LAX is probably the only one that is actually more dilapidated than the airport in Memphis (and since i've never been to like, Mississippi, Memphis is my hallmark of dilapidated cities). The flight was good to. You know how you never get to sit next to a cute girl or an interesting person or someone you're remotely interested in talking to on planes? Well, i was going through the statistics in my head earlier in the day while waiting at o'hare, and i figured i was about due in my life to have something like that coincidentally happen. And sure enough, a cute little japanese surfer girl was assigned the seat next to me on the flight to hawaii. she was really nice, really funny, and good company for the ridiculously long trip. and she offered to give me surf lessons this weekend, so that'll be cool. she works three jobs right now - as a surf instructor, a waitress, and a sea walker (she gives tours wearing one of those heavy, metal "20,000 leagues under the sea" style diving helmets!). She spends her off time traveling around the world surfing in places likes indonesia, australia, and mexico. pretty sweet. i don't know if it's the weather, the long work weeks, or all the of the freakin above, but her life somehow sounds much, much better than mine.
maybe i should take good ole johnny up on his offer?