pleased precariously

Everything is so green and lush here. I suppose it’s not hard to understand why, when you’ve got close to 20 hours between sunrise and sunset.

I’m sitting at a table just outside the Suppe Bar, eating my Jordbaeryoghurt & musli. It’s a bright, cloudless day. Yogurt, I’m eating yogurt. I hate yogurt. Who have I become in this place?

This trip is just a series of flashes, a series of still images with no continuity. It’s almost like living through memory. I remember things as they’re happening to me.

As we walked back to the apartment last night from Charlie’s at 2am, watching the sun rise, it occurred to me that at no time during the day do I have any idea what time it is. Between the jet lag, the whacky daylight hours, and the fact that two out of three timepieces I have access to are still showing SF time, I’m lost.

It also occurred to me that usually I have absolutely no idea of where I am at any given moment. I’ve looked at a map exactly one time. I know the way to the conference from the apartment, but I doubt I could find my way back.

We walk a lot here. Our normal day consists of 3 30-45 minute walks. A triangle, from apartment to conference, from conference to downtown, from downtown to home. I walk pretty fast here because I want to get to the conference for a talk, I’m freezing and want to get home, I’m hungry and dinner is far away, or I desperately need to pee (this happened Monday night. Thank the lord for “Cafe.Com” and their smelly bathroom.)

I haven’t spent much time socializing online for the past few days. Mostly because half the people I normally socialize with are all here, in person. The other reason is that all the people at home are generally still in bed when I leave for dinner. Lack of a working cell phone and no net connection at the apartment… ah well, I miss my pals.

I leave tonight at 8:20pm local time. I spend the evening at the Oslo airport hotel, then leave for Paris at 6:55. I’m expecting another sprint from one end of CDG to the other, which will involve me missing my connection by 5 minutes, and another 7 hour layover. Hopefully I’ll actually make it home tomorrow.

This post feels very disconnected. Paragraphs not exactly following one another. Reading it makes me think that even if I fail to communicate my head space with the content, the style should do a good job.

I arrived to the ticket counter at SFO less than an hour before my flight was to take off. There was noone else there, just a stern looking French woman and a dark curly haired man.

“Why are you so late?” she asked me as I walked up.
“Uh.. Long term parking.. I waited for 30 minutes for the bus…”
“You’re from San Francisco and you’re this late? *sigh*”
“I’m… sorry?”

For an instant I was afraid she’d say it was too late - that I’d missed the flight, and I should just go home. I got on the plane with about 15 minutes to spare, and took my seat (46H).

A few minutes later a woman stood next to me and informed me when I glanced up at her that I was in her seat. I looked up and sure enough, 47H. I let her sit, and moved up a row to find my seat taken by a French boy no older than 16, the spitting image of Harry Potter. I said he was in my seat, and he said he was only sitting there because this other fellow, a short bald round man with a slightly hooked nose, was in *his* seat. We looked at him questioningly and he dug around in his bags looking for his boarding pass. It eventually surfaced and he showed it to us. It said 46K. I said “oh, that’s right over here.” He got up and moved across the aisle and took the window seat - 46L. Harry Potter took his seat, and I slid into the aisle seat, my home for the next 9 hours and 40 minutes. Just after I sat down, a a girl stopped at row 46 and looked at her boarding pass and then at the short man and told him that he was in her seat. Such a difficult little man.

They played two movies on the flight, both of which I’d already seen, and both of which were horrible. Welcome to Mooseport, and Cheaper by the Dozen. I felt obligated to watch both, as I didn’t want to completely kill my eyes reading and figured they’d put me to sleep. Nope. No sleep for me.

I’m writing to you now from Charles De Gaulle. Sitting outside gate 54, terminal 2D. We landed at about 11:15. I stood around waiting a long time to deplane (I was, after all, in row 46). Walked down the stairs after getting off the the plane, and got on the bus that would take me from the plane to terminal 2C. Then a short walk to 2D and my waiting flight.

Noone told me (and obviously noone told the travel agent) that it can take upwards of 45 minutes to make that bus ride + walk. And that’s if you know where you’re going. I think I got to where I needed to be after about an hour. I walked up to the waiting gate attendant and she looked very sorry.

I then spent about an hour waiting in line at the transfer counter. I got up to the counter and the woman there informed me that there were no more seats on flights to Oslo today, and that she would put me on standby for the 7pm flight. The next flight with available seats was tomorrow morning. She was busy doing something for a few seconds and then said “oh, someone else has already made the reservation for you - you are confirmed on the 7pm flight.”

Of course, this will put me into Oslo at ~9pm, and my Oslo/Kristiansand flight was supposed to leave at 4:50pm. I’m not even sure if they have flights running that late.

A girl that looks like Elly just walked past me. I glanced up, and she was staring at me as she passed The hair gets a lot more weird looks here than in SF. She was walking with her father. She stopped him a few paces past me, and they both turned around, staring at me while talking. I wish I knew French.

Long entry I know. I apologize, but it’s an amusing story (to me anyway
I had communicated to just about everyone that needed to know (or asked) that I was flying from La Guardia on Monday, 12 noon. As is indicated on my itinerary:

My parents knew, my coworkers knew, my friends in New York knew. I knew. That’s why I was pleasantly relieved when I woke up Monday morning at around 7am after 2 hours of sleep to find that my itinerary actually read:

I had a whole hour and a half extra than I thought I did. I was relieved. I went to breakfast with some coworkers, and leisurely walked back up to my hotel room to shower and pack. I got out of the shower, got some clothes on, and sat down at the desk to write down my flight number. I see the itinerary, and it again looks like:

I lean back in the chair, and tilt my head to look at the clock between the queen sized beds. It reads 11:38. “fuuuuuuuuuuck”. The next 22 minutes sees me totally stressed out, trying to pack before checkout time at noon, while talking to a United Airlines customer service person who is checking other flights for me.

The customer service guy tells me that I can either try and get on standby for a 1:45 flight through denver (one leg of which has openings, the other leg is oversold), or I can confirm seats on the flight for the $100 change fee + the difference in ticket prices. Total amount, $871. fuuuuuuuck. I thank him, and tell him I’ll just go for the standby option. I get a cab outside the hotel and head to La Guardia where I make a few phone calls. First, to my dad, telling him I might not be making it in that night, explaining the screwup, listening to the obvious disappointment in his voice. Second, to my friend to check my bank balance for me, just in case I had to buy the ticket. There was no way I wasn’t going to make San Antonio that night.

I get to La Guardia, and after about 5 minutes in line, I get up to the ticket counter to plead my case. It’s 12:45. Mr. Salvatore seemed like a nice guy. I told him I wanted to get on standby for the 1:45 flight. He types frantically for a few seconds and says “hm, first leg should be fine, but you’re likely to be stuck in Denver because the second leg is oversold.” I ask him, “Are there any other flights that have openings on both legs?”

“Well, for $100 we can confirm you a seat on this flight.”

I stare at him for a second.. I’m waiting for him to lay the extra fee on me. After a few seconds I ask “uh, isn’t there the difference in fair I’ll have to make up? A guy told me it would come to $871 including the $100.”

“who told you this?”

“a guy I talked to when I called United’s 1-800 number”

“that guy was an idiot. $100.”

I slap my credit card on the counter.

The flights were pretty uneventful. I had an exit row to myself the first leg, so I got to spread out. But in the truest sense of balance, I was placed just 2 seats away from a screaming todler for the second leg. There needs to be an airline regulation that prohibits todlers from travelling on flights that arrive after 9pm. They’re just miserable after what’s usually a long day of flying, over tired… It’s just not a nice thing to do to a kid. And it makes everyone around them miserable too.

I get in 15 minutes early. Walk from the gate toward baggage claim, thinking I’ll see my parents waiting for me at the escalators, where they usually meet me. They aren’t there. I walk up to the carousel, assuming they’ll be sitting near there. I don’t see them. I get my bag off the carousel, still no sign of them. I call home — maybe they hadn’t left yet, or someone there could tell me where they are. No answer. I call my little sister’s cell phone. No answer.

I walk laps around the airport, back up through the ticket counter area, down through baggage claim.. I cover every inch of the place, even outside. About 30 minutes after I arrive, my little sister returns my call. She’s concerned, and so am I. My parents had left the house over an hour ago. I ask her if she has my mom’s cell phone number, because I didn’t.. She says “no, and she doesn’t ever have it on anyway. she just turns it on to call dad. what if something’s happened, chris?” I didn’t want to think about it. I told her I’d just keep walking around. I paged them at one of those white courtesy telephones, told the guy on the other end I was sitting at the United ticket counter area, and sat back to relax. My sister had ordered me to stay on the phone until we heard something or I found them, so I was talking to her about my flight when I heard the home phone ring through her cell. I hear “goddamnit, where the hell are you guys? we’ve been worried sick…. chris, what terminal are you in?” “uh, terminal 1.” “he’s in terminal 1. go get him. he’s been there an hour already.”

Turns out that my dad, on leaving the house, had declared that I was coming in to terminal 2. He had never made such declarations before, so my mom thought he must know something she didn’t, and didn’t question it. It’s nice to see that idiocy runs in the family at least

That’s what Joe, my roommate for the NYC summit trip, told the front desk when they called our room at 5am this morning with a noise complaint. This was after someone threw Nat to the ground. Someone was thrown up against a wall or two as well, and we were being generally obnoxious. When one person is belligerent after 6 hours of drinking it’s annoying. When 6 people are belligerent after 6 hours of drinking it’s downright scary.

Instead of quieting down we just moved the group to Nat and Alex’s room. We finally all passed out at around 7am.

I made it to the summit at around 4:30pm or so. Took the Q line from Times Square over to Brooklyn. As we crossed the bridge I looked over and saw the statue of liberty in the distance, with a blood red sun low on the horizon behind it. I’ve been shocked by how beautiful new york is.. Everything is so immense. I’ve done absolutely no touristy stuff, though, which is kind of a shame. Next trip I will.

Arriving at 4:30 made my boss a little unhappy, since we had a meeting scheduled for 2pm. I wasn’t the only one that didn’t show, though, so I didn’t feel as bad as I could have about it. I spent two and a half hours there, trying to get some stuff working, but my head was way too fuzzy. We left for dinner at 7pm. Back to Manhattan. Dinner made me insanely ill. I should really not ever eat beef again. I didn’t have the energy to send the food back and wait until more came, so I forced 5-10 bites down my throat. Now I’m sitting in the room with my stomach mostly empty, drinking chamomile tea.

So, let’s do the math.

Plane ticket: $300
Room for 3 nights: $900
Hours of work done: 2

$600/hour is a pretty good rate, no? If you think that’s a fair rate, my resume is here. Gimme a job.

The word “peaceful” is something I never thought I’d use to describe new york. “Peaceful” is also not a word I think I’d use to describe the way I feel when travelling. But that’s exactly how I feel here. Oliver and Amy’s house is really cozy.

My accidental ditching of the summit today turned out to be one of the best things I could have done.