wednesday, 8 mar 06

ever have one of those nights where you keep waking up, afraid you're not going to wake up on time? yeah. even though i put in a wakeup call, i didn't quite trust the desk enough to follow through. that set the mood for the whole day.

all (and i mean all) of my luggage was rummaged through at heathrow by middle-aged indian women. by the time they were done, my group had already boarded the plane, so i didn't have to wait for that. no, my wait came in the form of an eight-hour flight back to chicago. god, i was bored silly. i could only sleep so much, and the inflight movies/tv/radio sucked. they repeated it every two hours. and this makes sense how? plus i was worked up about a british web developer on the same flight, sitting right behind me.. he'd winked at me whilst we were being respectively rummaged through. i kept wanting to talk to him, but he always seemed to be doing something or sleeping or.. yeah. i suck.

i got to o'hare eventually. a cta guy at the terminal guided me to the train, bless his heart. even if it only took 5 minutes off my journey, no time was too little. i took the blue line downtown, switched to the red line, then took that all the way to my place. i reached my apartment exhausted, broken, near tears.. and no internet. none.

mother...fucker.

i'd had problems with it the night before i left. they'd been upgrading and i'd been left out in the cold. but i figured hey, they'd get it working after a week, right? nope. what's more, they weren't answering the phone, either. i started to panic. my friend mark was leaving for europe the next day for two weeks, and i wasn't going to be able to say goodbye. i tried all the settings i could think of, i tried to get my 56k external to work, i even tried making a collect call using my credit card, which was a double blow: 1. they didn't take visa (wtf?) and 2. his cell phone didn't accept collect calls. hot damn. finally someone answered the fucking phone at my isp, and i was hooked up within two minutes. jesus CHRIST.

so that's it, in a nutshell. in retrospect, i definitely would have gone with someone else. sure, i could make my own schedule and itinerary, but there was no one to make comments with or give me feedback when i went shopping or engage in conversation with a cute british guy. something to keep in mind for next time.. and oh yes. there will be a next time. :D