(no subject)
Snowy-snow. Didn't go to class today, I just couldn't manage to leave my cozy little apartment and make the blizzardy trip down to campus for an hour of walking up and down steps in Alexander Technique. I got some things done from the comfort of my own couch, including an excellent ammount of solitaire and Bejewled. lovely lovely. Now I'm just waiting around (kinda like I have been all day) for Brian to get off work and come get me so that we can make the two hour drive up to his parents house in Macedonia. I'm a little bit worried because the roads are bad and so many people are traveling tonight, but we'll just take it slow and steady and the Contour will get us there safely. We'll be back on Friday night cuz Brian has to work on the weekend, but that will be good cuz I get get all of my final projects taken care of and actually deal with the piles of clothes that I dumped out of my luggage when I got back from Tunis. Hopefully at that point I'll get some groceries too...it's been months since I got groceries :( that's why I'm starving!
So a little more about Tunisia, basically I spent three days in London sight-seeing since we didn't actually have rehearsals like we thought...one night I went to one of SMARTlab's PhD Seminars which really got me thinking about PhD's in general, like either maybe getting one in the near future, or deciding that they're complete bullshit. ha. ANYWAYS, I get the London airport ready for my trip to Tunis, check-in gives me my boarding pass like normal, continue through to the enoumous shopping mall of a terminal to wait for 3 hours before they even tell you what gate to go to. 20 minutes before the flight is going to leave the gate finally shows up and I head that direction, hand my boarding pass to this guy who starts hassling me about a paper-ticket..."where's your paper ticket? how did you get past check-in without a paper-ticket? who booked your flights? did they get your paper-ticket?" Finally they make some phone calls and there is nothing left to do but send me running like mad back out through the terminal out of security and down to this cave of a ticketing counter.
Basically to get on the flight, even though I had proof that the ticket had been purchased, and I had a seat and everything, I had to RE BUY the ticket ($1600 out of pocket). Fortunately my money was in the right places for me to be able to make this purchase...but still...it was horrifying! I ran back and barely made it on the plane, (I should probably be doing more aerobic excercise) and I'm seated with these two other guys (brothers about 17 and 22years old) who are going to the Summit as well. Well we start talking and getting along, and something gets said in spanish over the intercom, Lucas says "oh that's awfully nice that they say it in spanish, we're Argentinian". crazy coincidence that three of us all in a row on a plane from london to tunis were all born in the states of Argentinian parents! So it turned out to be a really fun flight talking to Federico and Lucas, and I got their info so I could stay in touch. (Turns out Federico was on my same flight coming back to London just a couple rows ahead!) So the plane touches down, and we pull up to this building...huge archway entrance at the center of a line of flags...then they pull out the stairs of the plane and roll out a red carpet to let all of the VIPs (like heads of state and Diplomats mostly)out to the line of SUVs waiting to take them away...half an hour later they finally taxi-ed the plane to the terminal and we the normal people, were able to get off the plane in Tunis....
okay, Brian will be here any second! Hope everyone travels safely, and more on Tunis later.
So a little more about Tunisia, basically I spent three days in London sight-seeing since we didn't actually have rehearsals like we thought...one night I went to one of SMARTlab's PhD Seminars which really got me thinking about PhD's in general, like either maybe getting one in the near future, or deciding that they're complete bullshit. ha. ANYWAYS, I get the London airport ready for my trip to Tunis, check-in gives me my boarding pass like normal, continue through to the enoumous shopping mall of a terminal to wait for 3 hours before they even tell you what gate to go to. 20 minutes before the flight is going to leave the gate finally shows up and I head that direction, hand my boarding pass to this guy who starts hassling me about a paper-ticket..."where's your paper ticket? how did you get past check-in without a paper-ticket? who booked your flights? did they get your paper-ticket?" Finally they make some phone calls and there is nothing left to do but send me running like mad back out through the terminal out of security and down to this cave of a ticketing counter.
Basically to get on the flight, even though I had proof that the ticket had been purchased, and I had a seat and everything, I had to RE BUY the ticket ($1600 out of pocket). Fortunately my money was in the right places for me to be able to make this purchase...but still...it was horrifying! I ran back and barely made it on the plane, (I should probably be doing more aerobic excercise) and I'm seated with these two other guys (brothers about 17 and 22years old) who are going to the Summit as well. Well we start talking and getting along, and something gets said in spanish over the intercom, Lucas says "oh that's awfully nice that they say it in spanish, we're Argentinian". crazy coincidence that three of us all in a row on a plane from london to tunis were all born in the states of Argentinian parents! So it turned out to be a really fun flight talking to Federico and Lucas, and I got their info so I could stay in touch. (Turns out Federico was on my same flight coming back to London just a couple rows ahead!) So the plane touches down, and we pull up to this building...huge archway entrance at the center of a line of flags...then they pull out the stairs of the plane and roll out a red carpet to let all of the VIPs (like heads of state and Diplomats mostly)out to the line of SUVs waiting to take them away...half an hour later they finally taxi-ed the plane to the terminal and we the normal people, were able to get off the plane in Tunis....
okay, Brian will be here any second! Hope everyone travels safely, and more on Tunis later.