I'm a tad slow to write about things these days, I think I'm suffering from writer's block. But I'm finally able to sit down and write about my trip to Norway.
On 20 January, I hailed a cab and asked the driver to take me to Dorval. Instead of the normal ridiculously early flight, I had managed to book one for the evening. This was a welcome change and I was positively cheering going through airport security. I arrived early, so I sat about in the lounge, surfing the Internet, until the sun went down and we boarded the aircraft. I fell asleep immediately. When I woke up, we were just landing in London and I groggily collected my possessions.
I tried to get my bearings and stumbled into a queue. I went through airport security again, because the English don't believe that other countries do proper checks. Then I was spit out into some concourse shopping area. Heathrow is a very busy place, with people scurrying around and looking harried.
I pulled out my cellphone and tried to call Kyle. That's when I felt someone bump into me and I sped up my pace. Then another bump and I turned around to face my assailant. Oh, hi Kyle. We found a spot and waited for video screen to announce our gate to Oslo.
I dropped off again once we boarded the aeroplane and woke up for a snowy landing in Oslo. But it was 10°C warmer when compared to Montreal. I watched the luggage handlers unload our bags as people grabbed things from the overhead compartments. When we got out, I immediately noticed that the airport looked like a giant IKEA. We walked down a hallway with modular units, I ducked into a modular toilet, after passing a modular firehose, modular storage closet, and modular ventilation shaft. It was so modern that even the graffiti emphasized good design.
We found our way to the Flytoget, the airport expresss train, and bought some tickets using the automated teller. Then I tried to go through the turnstile but was defeated by my own stupidity. The security guard, who looked like a Valkyrie, took pity on me and waved me through. We got on the train and had just stowed our luggage when Daniel boarded our car. Hurray for chance meetings! We chatted as the train sped through the countryside and past snowy stations. I stared out the window as the bullet train made streaks out of tunnel lights.
An Ubuntu distribution sprint happens midway through the development cycle of each release. This one, for Oslo, concentrating on some last minute issues. Developers worked together on various features that required co-ordination, showed each other the bits they were working on, and had conversations about things that needed to get done. This was all done in the Scandic KNA, which is in the National Theatre district of Oslo. This was a short walk from the train station and we checked in with a minimum of fuss.
The next day, we got up bright and early. I spoke with Henrik about his idea for getting more people involved in testing the CD images we use to distribute Ubuntu. For the past couple of releases, we stop all development for a week before we release the distribution. Everyone stops and tries to install Ubuntu on all of their machines. The big problems with this method are that we stall developers for an entire week and we don't test the installer on enough diverse machines. His plan involves working with the Ubuntu Forums. Instructions for how to help out are there in a sticky thread.
The area around the hotel is pretty and relatively new. I think there's some kind of school or university across the street, students were always going in and out at around lunchtime. They had wrapped an entire building in plastic wrap and were doing some form of renovations. Tollef informs me that this area used to be the docks, but those got shut down and now it's full of condos. That's why everything is so convenient and hip and trendy. It reminded me of Canada, specifically Montréal, and alleviated some of the homesickness.
I also talked with Robert about bug triage and how to get more volunteers. Although the BugSquad and Ubuntu QA are growing at a steady pace, we still don't have the critical mass that keeps #ubuntu-bugs busy all the time. One of the suggestions is to create an announcement-only mailing list that tells people how to participate in new QA endeavours. People on the BugSquad should expect to be signed up soon.
On Thursday, to our surprise, the Monte Carlo Car Rally started just outside the hotel's front door. Car enthusiasts invaded, classic cars were parked in the garage, and we saw them queue up to start racing. Lovely, lovely machines.
We're definitely going to do things that make triaging easier and more exciting. For instance, bughelper is something that Henrik and Daniel have been hacking on. Bughelper is designed to help sift through bugs in the Ubuntu distribution and find what you're looking for. Be they duplicates, crashes, or a particular type of bug, it can help you in your searches. It's almost like a bug-grepper actually. And it's very, very helpful.
That evening, we went to Henrik's house for dinner. Phillip, who's working on his genetics Ph.D. made us all a very lovely meal. It was my first exposure to fishpudding, which appears to be something that Norwegians like serving to foreigners. A practical joke, perhaps? After dinner, we discovered that the neighbourhood football pitch had frozen over. After locating a tennis ball, a group of us went outside and played a variant of hockey. Until we lost the puck in the snow.
By now, people were starting to show signs of fatigue. Both Robert and Scott attended linux.conf.au right before they showed up. This meant they were disease vectors, which is what happens when you bring a whole bunch of people from all over the world into one big petri-dish of conference hall. Their particular plague seemed to be brutal, but not very contagious, as only some of us got violently ill. As usual, I happened to catch it.
On Friday night, we walked down to the fjords and stared out at the sea. They really are lovely, but there were a lot of people down by the docks so it was difficult to examine them properly. Tollef had made some reservations for us at a local Indian restaurant and we were treated to a lovely meal. Everything was cooked perfectly and left us happy and satiated.
Then came the bowling. Ben wanted to see just how many of us would lace up in smelly, rented shoes and embarass ourselves. I thought this was a marvellous idea. The first frame I ever threw was sort of a strange disaster. That's because I had never bowled before. So I tossed the bowling ball, which was far too heavy, backwards into my team. I managed to do reasonably well, for a beginner, by the end of the night. We stumbled back to hotel, tired but happy.
Early the next morning, Kyle and I woke up and headed to the airport. We caught the same flight to Heathrow, met Ben at the terminal, and then parted ways. I landed in Montréal feeling very tired and grumpy, but brightened up when I got out. Instead of my usual routine of catching the bus, I was swarmed by a group of friends. They had come, on my birthday, to whisk me away to a surprise party. I love you guys!
I had a very long bath and slept for a very long time.
Flying out to another city is sometimes a bit stressful, especially if you've been travelling a lot. Here's what happened on the 11th, when I was set to fly to San Francisco.
21:00: Laundry laundry laundry. Blacks, whites, blue-greens, red-browns. No clean clothes and not enough time. I pulled the last load from the washer, hung it up, and ran out.
01:00: I hailed a cab to the W, in the hopes of meeting ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dzuunmod. They had already left but I was treated to a strange scene of beating music, girls dancing on dividers in precarious heels, and expensive drinks. Everyone else was too clean and sharp to be geeky, though I managed to fit in. Until I pulled out my notebook and started writing.
02:30: Rode the bus up to St. Viateur to buy bagels for my expat friends. The bus is full of drunkards, as the bars had just let out. Some girls got off the same bus and they were weaving around trying to find the bakery. I led the way. Got a dozen sesame seed ones and consumed one greedily while it was still soft and hot. There are hundreds of newspaper clippings lining the walls, you know, and even signed photographs.
03:00: Rode the bus back home. Ironed a few shirts and packed the suitcase. Tried fitfully to stay awake.
04:30: Cleaned the kitchen.
05:30: Bagged up the bagels.
08:50: Got to Dorval airport bleary-eyed and confused. Tipped the cab driver well for driving like a madman. Then I stood in line forever at security, got through the TSA, and arrived at the gate. There I discovered that I had no seat.
11:00: Kurt von Finck and Jeff Bailey showed up to keep me company. They boarded the plane before me while two other passengers waited to see if they could free up seats. One was really upset, since he had to make it for his daughter's birthday. I was remarkably calm about the whole thing, finding it even amusing. The ladies at the gate shook their heads when they realized my suitcase was on the flight.
11:20: The handlers rearranged some cargo so that we could fly. Seats were made available and we boarded. I sat in one that had been vacated three times. We got briefed about emergency procedures, where I claimed to know how to open the emergency exit. There's a lot of legroom in those spots. Kurt sat in front of me chatting with a guy the whole flight. I passed out happily.
14:45: Awoke in San Francisco. It was bright, sunny, and warm. I was still tired, even though I gained three hours of sleep. We met Jim Morrison, got our bags, and headed out the door. With our local guide, we got on the BART, then the CalTrain and were off to Sunnyvale.
15:30: On the train, we shared the car with some kids from USC. They were all in football uniforms, swapping beers, and being rowdy. Their coach told me they were going to play Stanford at 16:00. The conductor, grumpy man he was, shouted at them to get out of the hallways. Kurt and I went to the second level where he chatted with some guy from Vancouver. I watched the guys below do the college football thing: talk about girls, make out with girls, and crack open cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
15:40: They got off at the Stanford Stadium stop, which was basically a hole in the fence. It's a stop solely used for football games. Isn't it odd how football is so important that the train would make a special stop? Calm returned to the train.
16:10: We got off at Lawrence and tried to walk to the hotel. We commandeered a shopping cart, one of those huge Costco numbers. That didn't work out so well with all our baggage, so we found a petrol station and got the attendant to call a taxi for us. She had trouble understanding us at first. While we waited, I bought a map. Then I juggled.
17:00: The cab brought us to the hotel. We dropped off our stuff and I took a bath. Then it was dinner at a local Japanese restaurant, which looked pretty empty. They shouted irasshaimase at us as we entered, so it couldn't have been that bad. I asked for a tatami room, we sat down, and I pigged out on otoro. Mmm, it was good to be back in California.
19:00: I was supposed to go to SuperHappyDevHouse, but I thought it was on the other side of the city, instead of a half-hour away. Whoops. Instead, I attended a party with Jim. We walked from Sunnyvale to Palo Alto. It was a good walk, except for the fact that I was in constant pain from my bruised foot.
19:45: We arrived to a group of people playing some form of game. I no longer recall what it was. It eventually devolved into people just sitting around talking. I met Mike, who was the host of the party. And I forgot-her-name, who was the cute girl that all the guys wanted to talk to. And Will Chan, who would show up in my later adventures. Everyone else got introduced to me, and I forgot all of their names too. But I do remember that they all worked for Google.
22:30: There was a lot of partying, which involved excessive drinking on most people's part. I'm glad that Jim has brought alcoholism to his co-workers, although slightly disturbed at their tastes. They bayed at the moon on the balcony, which ended up in the cops arriving. Nicest cops I'd ever seen. They thought the party was cool, since we were quiet by then, but had to show up because of a neighbour's call.
00:15: The Token Hot Guy at the party had hooked up with the Cute Girl, so I made people promise not to let them drive off drunk. This failed because everyone else was having a "good time" and didn't notice them putting on their shoes. This meant that I had to trail them to a parking lot, in a dark neighbourhood, and I am bad with directions. She wanted to drive herself home in her car, but the guy seemed reasonably sober, so I let him drive. I hope they didn't get into trouble.
00:25: I walked back in the warm Californian night, slightly lost, until I found Jim getting into Will's car. Will drove us to the hotel, where I collapsed instantly of exhaustion.
Yesterday was elliptic_curve's last day in Montréal. At least for a good, long while. We had an absolutely delicious brunch at Réservoir, which is still my favourite gastro-pub. Now even more so, I suppose.
She packed while I took a bit of a nap before washing some dishes. I helped her carry her backpack, which was really top-heavy, to the bus-stop. She was getting on the bus when I heard a sudden bang, some pylons flew apart, and people from the tam-tams started running up Parc avenue. Only later did I discover that it was a Cessna performing an emergency landing.
Instead of indulging my curiousity, I just went home and made pizza dough. Because, you know, taking photographs doesn't put dinner on the table.
Update at 15:07: Le Devoir covers this event with a researched article.
Update at 17:11 13-09-2006: The Gazette has an English article.
Flying out of Germany was a lot more pleasant than flying in.
I spent the morning writing postcards and licking stamps. The stamps in Germany are pretty cool. Deutsche Post has vending machines next to many of their postboxes that will sell them to you. You select the kind you want, put in the right money, and a dot-matrix printer starts squealing away. You then fetch them out of a chute below. I'm sure I got a million diseases by licking them, but sacrifices must be made.
Since it took me hours to write out my mail, the sun had come up by the time I was done. I had a quick shower, packed my belongings, and said goodbye to the hotel. I was much more used to Germany, so I didn't get lost when I took the bus, nor when I took the train. It let me out at the aeroport, where I cleverly remembered where the post box was. Off into the wide world went my postcards.
I checked in for my flight, which involved queuing up for the baggage scanner. They had an X-ray machine in front of the check-in counter, which was hooked up to a digital imaging system. That way, they only had to briefly scan the luggage and could examine the bag in detail without blasting it with radition. Clever! Plus, it was colour-enhanced. The lady operating the machine let me look at her display and I got to see the insides of my suitcase. I then loaded it on to the scale where it was automatically weighed and sent via a clever series of belts to the luggage area. There was even a machine to position it properly for going down the chute.
Inside the aeroport, there are plenty of interesting things. For one, they've kept one of those old electro-mechanical timetables, which makes that characteristic clicky-click noise once heard all over the world. They also had a Goethe bar in the centre of the departures area, which I thought was a wonderful pun.
I took some photographs in the boarding area, but we were soon on the tarmac. We walked up to the back of the plane and filed inside. There, I found my seat next to Milley, a girl from Montréal who is now working in Toulouse. We had an excellent conversation before I passed out from exhaustion.
She kept on waking me up for meals, which was both nice but tiring. By the time I got back to Montréal, I was so exhausted that I was slightly delirious. I helped a nice couple from Frankfurt get into the Métro, they were visiting for three days, and got on the bus home.
My bed never felt so comfortable.
On Saturday, it was bright and sunny and brilliant. Only, I missed my flights so it not a particularly good day. So I made up for them.
So on Sunday, I showed up again at Dorval. It was dreary, raining, and cold. I showed up early to the terminal, got my boarding pass, and went through security. Then I spent three hours finishing a book. We boarded the plane and then waited for about an hour. So I started another one.
Once we were in the air, they served us a microwaved pot-roast that was flavoured mostly by MSG. What was most notable was that everything was served in these hermetically sealed plastic containers. We hurtled through the sky as I passed out, slept fitfully, and then woke up to the most beautiful dawn. I shan't mention the kind of breakfast we were served.
I arrived in Frankfurt, picked up my baggage and wandered like a lost puppy for a while until I found the following things: a bank machine, the railway ticket office, and the right platform. Once I got on the train, things went pretty smoothly. I arrived at the train station in Wiesbaden, where I noticed walls of beautiful graffiti. I made a mental note to return to take photographs and then looked about for the buses.
After going into an underpass, I found them. I managed to get on the appropriate bus and sailed along until I missed my stop. But eventually, after asking for help in some very pidgin German, I made it to the hotel. Exhausted.
Whoops! I missed my flight.
I'm sitting in the aeroport waiting for a standby. With any luck, I'll be able to make it to Wiesbaden for supper. That trip shall be interesting whether I make it or not.
I'm also using the Internet, which they will kindly charge me to use. If only it were so simple. I had a lot of trouble actually paying for the service. But eventually, I convinced things to work. (Hint to network administrators: an MTU of 64 bytes is too small.)
18 June 2006
I was ever so excited to go on this trip. Yes, I know it was for business, but it was going to be my first trip to Europe! Having only ever gone to conferences in North America, I was finally going to see the Old Western World. I packed my luggage, thew in everything I thought I'd possibly need, and then some. Then I grabbed my passport and hailed a cab.
At the aeroport, we went through some preliminary security and then I was inside. I met bbollenbach ad we chatted about life for a brief while before we were called upon to board. I have to thank Brad, actually, for he was the one who told me that our flight was at 22:30, not 10:30 as I had believed. Curse people and their use of twelve-hour time! It was thanks to him that I actually got any sleep that night.
Well, I was still tired so I slept through most of the flight. I was awakened to have two meals, both of which were bad signs. Air France, I'm afraid, likes to serve stale baguette. I had not yet learnt to be assertive with the French service, but this is a lesson I would be taught during my trip.
I arrived at Charles-de-Gaulle where it was bright and sunny and hot. We crowded on to a bus and found ourselves deposited at the terminal. Brad and I picked up our luggage and found our way to the shuttle bus that got us to the hotel. We were trying to check in, with exceptional difficulty, when Claire Newman whisked in and convinced the hotel that we were actually staying there. I dropped off my luggage in the room, flopped on a bed, and sighed in relief. Paris, at last!
By Monday morning, it was my turn to get up ludicrously early. I managed to catch a hot shower, which was very welcome. You see, they turned off the hot water late at night, and didn't turn it on early in the morning. So if you kept hacker hours, you'd get a cold shower before going to bed. I bid goodbye to my sleeping companions as I rolled my suitcase out of the room and checked out at the Reception desk.
I sat on my suitcase with laptop in hand, as we waited for the others to show up. We were carpooling to town in some taxis, as I had an awful bus experience coming in to Oaxtepec. It was in this hour that I taught myself how to blend exposures in the Gimp. There was a lot of fiddling with alpha channels and masks, until I hit upon exactly the right solution.
By the time I was done, a rather large group of people had gathered about me. It was about then that four taxis pulled up and we threw all our luggage into little hatchbacks. Then Nattie, Ben, and I squeezed inside and we were off!
Instead of choosing the toll highway, our driver decided to take the country roads. This was not such a poor idea, since we got a good look at the countryside. I had never seen fields of cactus before, but I suppose that makes sense. After all, it is edible and requires very little irrigation.
We drove along the winding roads and passed through town after town. In one, we had to stop momentarily. That's because a herder was driving his flock of sheep through town. We saw them turn a corner, and then our car was surrounded by a sea of bleating wooly sheep. Then, as quickly as they appeared, they were gone.
As we neared Mexico City, we noticed a rather large mountain in the distance. A mountain that spewed smoke. Our driver informed us that it's Popocatepetl, a local active volcano. He pulled over by the side of the road and let Nattie hop out to take photographs. The taxi behind us pulled over as well, and they spent a few minutes snapping shots. I noted that where we had stopped was rather hazy, so I just snapped a few photographs when it appeared in my window. I lucked out, I suppose.
You could tell when we approached the city, as the traffic got heavier and things got louder. I awoke from my brief nap to see us pull through a toll-booth and on to a six-lane highway. We managed to get to the international gates at the aeroport, have our luggage unloaded, and paid our driver for his troubles.
Then we checked in. My luggage tested positive for explosives about four times. The security guard for Mexicana kept swabbing away with test strips, each time coming up with a different result. Eventually, he printed up a chart, stared at the squiggly lines, and let me put it on the conveyor belt. Then, I met up with Nattie and Ben, and we also bumped into Peter.
We bought some postcards and sat in a restaurant. There, we ate overpriced American food and wrote back home. Or rather, Nattie and Ben wrote charming postcards and I dashed off twenty-three hastily worded missives. Then, we hugged goodbye and it was time for me to board my flight. Ben graciously offered to post my mail, because I had run out of time.
Liftoff was quite exciting. The wind was gusting so as we took off, I got to see the engine shake furiously in its housing. And we did a little hop as we pulled off the ground. A little girl, sitting behind me, shrieked in distress when we did that. I really don't blame her.
Landing in Montréal was a lot safer. Even though we had to go through layers and layers of clouds to do it. It was sort of depressing, actually, flying from gorgeous blue skies into a city covered by grey. But I had brought the sunshine back with me!
I was staying over at dcoombs's place on Friday night, which was very gracious of him. It also meant that I got a ride to the aeroport on Saturday morning, so that I could catch my 8:05 flight. After going through security, I waited for a bit and read a book. Then we boarded and waited on the tarmac for an oil filter change.
No kidding.
We took off and I soon fell asleep, as I was quite tired. By the time I woke up, we were flying over sunny Mexico. We landed at the aeroport, picked up my baggage, went through customs and ended up in the terminal. It was full of people with signs looking for their loved ones. I made my way past them and followed a sign that looked like it was for taxis. Along the way, I saw an HSBC and poked my head inside. I was slightly disappointed that nobody was speaking Chinese.
I bought a flat-rate taxi fare to the Terminal de autobuses in Tasqueña. The taxi driver, Bito, loaded my suitcase in the car and we were off. His English was non-existant so we spoke to each other with our hands. The rest of the time, I spent staring out the window.
Mexico City is bright and colourful! Everything has vibrant splashes of colour. There are huge fleets of old Volkswagon Beatles driving around, many of them operating as green taxicabs. We drove past shops and stores and the signs were hand-painted and awesome. When we got to the poorer communities, I started seeing tags on buildings, but then we drove past these huge murals spray-painted on large walls.
He let me off at the terminal and I bought a ticket to Oaxtepec. This was done through plenty of pointing and reading off of computer teminals. Then, I went out Gate 3 and walked into a mass of people.
Now, I'm used to people queueing up, but this was not a common concept here. I tapped someone on the should and asked how I could get on my bus. Giacomo introduced himself and tried to explain the system. But he eventually just talked to the ticket collector who let me on the same coach. I discovered that he had family who lived in Hamilton and invited him to look me up if he ever visited Montréal.
When we got to Oaxtepec, I staggered off the bus and picked up my luggage. Then I got un-carsick by sitting down on something stable. I was standing outside the front gates of the Centro vacacional Oaxtepec IMSS. I considered the long hike up a big hill, and then hired a cab that took me up to the Recepcion building where I got checked in. I dragged my luggage to the room and met Blars there. I picked out a bed amongst the five still available. I had finally arrived.
After a long week of working in Toronto and being friendly to new faces, I got on a jet plane and left for San Francisco. That was on the 9th. I did this so that I could be friendly to new faces. Why do I do this to myself? I have no idea. But it is fun!
I waited around in a part of Terminal 3 that looked like it was still under construction. There were people in hard-hats walking around and rivetting beams to pillars. I chatted with a woman who was flying to Fort Lauderdale for business meetings and then she had to leave for her flight.
It was very odd getting on to mine. I had to walk out an emergency exit, on to the tarmac, back inside, out another door, on the tarmac again, and on to the plane. It was quite cold that day and rather windy too. So windy, in fact, that we encountered turbluence when we took off. Luckily, the pilot was able to keep the plane under control so we didn't go smashing into the earth in a fiery ball. That would have been unpleasant.
I had a short layover in Philidelphia again, which was very nice as usual. I watched one man sell parlour tricks to some tourists: he had an LED light that would levitate in his hands and spin. They were quite mesmerised and bought one.
I managed to get some sleep on the flight in to San Francisco, and woke up in time to see the lights below. It's a very pretty city from above, glittering and glowing in the night. I got off the aeroplane and headed for the baggage check. Once again, spider88 was waiting there for me. She is my aeroport guardian angel. This time, she had brought along kineticphoenix and riseorbleed.
Since I was famished, we quickly left to find some food. We tried to eat at Mikado Sushi, which is run by their friends, but it was closed for a private party. With this plan ruined, we walked about in confusion before we went into We Be Sushi, which had an awesome sign out front.
After a very tasty dinner with some astounding hamachi, we waddled out and were in danger of collapsing from a food coma. So Spider and I were dropped off with our luggage at the W San Francisco. Now this hotel is slightly different than the W Seattle; of course, it shares the exorbitant prices but it's the details that are significant. Like an Etch-a-Sketch in every room!
I had a shower to wash off seven hours of travel grime before I changed into something less comfortable and more stylish. Then I felt civilised enough to head down to the XYZ where the CodeCon Speakers and Organizers Reception was being held. I chatted with some people who would be presenting, read Creatures in My Head on a Michelle's laptop, met John who maintains kernel.org, was introduced to bramcohen, and talked a lot about UniConf.
Then I went upstairs to sleep. Man, fancy hotels sure have comfortable beds.
Pittsburgh is a city that's with a strange name, because it is spelled phonetically. But I forgive it, because its aeroport offers free wireless Internet access.
I've been catching up on my on-line life, which has been on-hold since I left for San Francisco. Yes, I've been in Silicon Valley for a week with practically no Internet access. The irony is scrumptious.
I will be back in Toronto in a couple of hours. Then, it will be time to go on the road and drive to Montréal.
Oh look! The sun's coming up.
When I awoke in the morning, I noticed two things. The first was that the bed I was sleeping in was absolutely ginormous. It had six pillows upon it and was as wide as it was long—which was very. You could comfortably fit a family of four in it. The second thing I noticed was that the light switches were about 10cm below where I expected them to be.
You may ask why I couldn't locate them the night before. You see, I have discovered that the W Seattle not only has an annoying Flash website, but also caters to a very specific demographic. Namely twenty-something men who have too much money and too few morals. And to accomodate this, the hallways were very poorly lit so that girls coming up from the bar downstairs wouldn't be recognised. In the room, there was plenty of alcohol, the furnishings oozed luxury, and everything cost boatloads of money. A morning glass of orange juice would set you back $5 USD.
I went with spider88 to a supermarket, called QFC. Which stands for Quality Food Centers. So I may not be a marketting genius, but that's a really dumb name. We walked through this store, with the biggest frozen food section I have ever seen, to pick up some things. As we were about to walk out, I noted that they were running a sale on artesian water. If you thought the spring water fad was yuppie, this is even worse. When I got back to my hotel room, I discovered a small bottle of the stuff costs $8.
I walked about Seattle with only a T-shirt underneath my coat. It was wonderfully warm and the sky even humoured me with a couple of sunny breaks. A man driving a van labelled "Seattle Express" kept on accosting me, probably because I looked like a tourist.
"You need a taxi? Where are you going?"
"Twelve dollars!"
"I swear to my god, it is twelve dollars!"
"Ten dollars! Ten dollars, sir."
I decided to walk.
That night, stolen_tea came by my room with a pair of movies in hand. Both Spider and Stolen had planned to inflict these movies upon each other, and I was merely providing the appropriate venue for this perversion. What could be better than a swanky hotel room to screen movies about piercings, rape, drugs, and violence? We had a ball.
Spider and I went on an exciting roadtrip on Saturday. It rained and we were stuck in traffic. As we were locating the Portland Art Museum, we managed to see the best clothing sale ever! We figured that if you got a new coat, the protesters would spraypaint you as you walked out.
The art museum was great. There was a brass sculpture that looked like a girl's back. I saw Hessian silverware that I would die to serve dinner upon. I marvelled at an armoire made in the early 1900s that looked like IKEA designed it. And I read a sign, in orange neon, that proclaimed FIVE WORDS IN ORANGE NEON. I wanted to take a photograph of it, but a security guard stopped me.
We all went to dinner at a fancy Thai restaurant called Typhoon! I started with ส้มตำ, a green papaya salad, which was absolutely fabulous. Then I got to indulge in a big bowl of duck curry with pineapple and cherry tomatoes and grapes. It was less savoury and more sweet, which was a pleasantly sticky surprise. A little more tart and a little less coconut cream and it would have been perfect!
I hung out with wealhtheow at a record store that was going out of business. Wealhþeow's theory is that their vinyl cost too much. But everything was on sale so I picked up two CDs, while she picked up one. Then we crossed the street to Powells, where I was doomed to buy too many books. I sat in the travel section for a while, when a couple came and asked to get to books on Canada. They pulled out a map and told me they were going to Victoria.
"It's on an island," he said.
"I know," I replied, "I'm Canadian."
They're going to get married there. I warned them about the rain.
For dessert, we headed over to Voodoo Doughnut which was nestled in a nook between two clubs. I tried to get someone to marry me there, but nobody accepted my proposals. However, the night was enlivened by some grunge punks who came in from a show to buy some snacks. There was a brash lass who proudly displayed her cock and balls. I got her e-mail address.
Spider and I went to Wealhþeow's place, where we were supposed to watch I ♥ Huckabees. Instead, the two girls posted to LiveJournal. After they had their fix, we shared music with each other and I was the lucky recipient of a copy of How We Quit the Forest.
On the way back to Seattle, we stopped to have a cheap, tasty hamburger. Spider stopped at a real American diner by the side of the road, where we got out and each ordered deluxe burgers. They're deluxe because they have lettuce and tomato. I also got to say "small chocolate malt" which I haven't done in years. It came in a large cup.
I got back in the air on Monday morning, where I was seated beside a husband and wife. This was vaguely unpleasant, as the wife was sitting in third-class when normally she flew first. Her husband seemed very nice and apologied for her brattiness. I expressed concern with my thirty-minute layover in Chicago, but he assured me that it was possible to run from one end of O'Hare to the other in six minutes. Then his wife mocked him.
I managed to run to my seat and sat beside a grandmother who seemed quite out of breath. It seems like she also ran to make her connecting flight from Denver. She flew a lot, so I asked her to help me clear customs, which she did. You know what the best thing about coming in Canada is? Seeing welcome signs that read "Arrivées/Arrivals".
It's nice to be home.
I hailed a cab from the office which drove me to the gates of the aeroport. Unfortunately, the cabbie took me to the wrong end, which meant that I had to walk a long while before I could get where I needed to be. Also unfortunate is that you have to use a lousy kiosk in order to get your boarding passes. It's lousy because it has a terrible user interface. But it can't tell if you lie to it, so there is some advantage.
When I went through U.S. Customs in Montréal, I had to declare the things I was bringing through. Just as I was about to leave, the lady asked me if I was bringing any food.
"Well, I have some sandwiches for the flight," I admitted.
"What kind of sandwiches?"
"Smoked meat."
"Uh oh."
We went and saw the Department of Agriculture officer, who was a very nice person with a southern drawl. She was very nice, you see, because she let me eat half a sandwich before throwing the rest of them out. She had also gone native, which I noticed because she said that "Japan imports our beef now, it's stupid that they're still banning it."
Waiting to board was very boring, so I did things like walk around and take photographs. I tried to use the Internet, but these Opti-Fi people are everywhere. And I still can't convince them to take my money in exchange for Internet access.
The aeroplane I embarked was a Bombardier CRJ-100 which was really quite small. I'm glad that I'm not very tall, because one gentleman sat with his head bent all flight long. I managed to crink my head out the window to take some photographs. I also managed to convince my seatmate to find another seat, so I could put my feet up.
As the plane took off, I couldn't help but look out the window. Although I used to have a fear of heights, I didn't panic this time. Maybe things aren't so bad any more? As we climbed out of the city, I couldn't help but recite "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth." I didn't know it was so beautiful up there! The sun is so crisp and the sky is so clean and you can see forever and ever. I didn't know the world was blurry, until I saw the clarity myself.
There was a layover in Philadelphia where I got lost trying to find my gate. But after a bit of running around in circles, I managed to locate it. There, I sat beside a woman who watched home movies on her mobile phone. Since I was bored, I started talking to her and discovered that she was visiting her grandchildren. I also discovered that her name is Joyce and she's a Seattle realtor who specialises in condominiums.
I arrived in Seattle both lost and absolutely famished. I was incapable of finding the right luggage belt, but I found Joyce who pointed out that there were more belts further down. There, I found spider88 whom I had never seen before, but was a terribly welcome sight. I hugged her enthusiastically and double-kissed her, which shocked her a bit. Then she remembered that I'm from Montréal. After I picked up my luggage, I demanded (uncharacteristically) that we grab a bite to eat. This is how we ended up at an unauthentic Thai restaurant that was very good and open very late. I ate some "number four" chicken curry, which really wasn't that hot.
After dinner, I went to Spider's flat where I met thewronghands. Irony of ironies, as I arrived in the States, she heads off to Canada. After some chatting, Spider drove me to my hotel which was very difficult to find. But we eventually did and I collapsed on the bed without even turning on the lights. This is because I couldn't find the light switches.
I'm flying to Toronto this afternoon. I expect not to get airsick this time.
We got up ludicrously early on Christmas morning, but not to any
sort of ritual holiday celebration. Rather, we woke up at 5:00 to a
bunch of luggage, which we had to lug out to the airport taxi-van. We
arrived at Pearson Terminal 1 and lined up for about two hours in
order to get through the rigmarole that is required for flying. After
this, we sat in our seats for about two hours as the aeroplane took on
fuel and got deiced.
Eventually, the plane taxied to a runway and took off. This is when I remembered that I have a horrible fear of heights. I discovered that sitting in the centre of the aeroplane vastly amortises the crippling fear I have of being far above the ground. Relieved as I was, I was completely unprepared for the crippling boredom that is a sixteen-hour non-stop flight. Intellectually, I understand that this is preferable to twenty-hour flights with layovers, the monotony was pretty bad. They served us fairly decent microwaved food, where the best part were little soy-sauce packets in the shape of fish.
Actually, f_law had no problem with boredom, since
she was happily occupied with her own personal television. I think
she crawled through half the video collection on-board. I watched
Eat Drink Man Woman for the food scenes, which were rewarding
indeed. Actually, this television system had a touch-screen that
worked pretty well. It polled some on-board sensors to display
information like airspeed and altitude, plus it was able to show a
little Mercator projection that would show you your flight path. I
also discovered that it was driven by Linux, since the flight
attendant had to reboot my television after I found a bug in the
software.
I was going to get some sleep, but air-sickness interfered with this plan. Sadly, I wasn't informed that we had Gravol with us until very late in the flight. Gravol was really good at putting me to sleep and solving my upset stomach, so I think I shall take it on my return trip.
Our arrival in Hong Kong was interesting. My first impression was that Hong Kong is a very humid place in winter. My next observation is that modern airports seem to have the same architectural theme—one that I think will look really silly two decades from now. The Christmas decorations in the airport were fairly conspicuous: there were pictures of snowflakes and snowmen, which are fairly impossible for 20C weather. In addition, they had a huge "tree" made of a cluster of poinsettias, instead of a more traditional evergreen. Going outside, I noticed how thick the air was, and how you can actually see and taste it. Apparently, the pollution was particularly bad today, so perhaps that's why my chest was a little constricted.
We got on a double-decker bus, apparently standard in this city, and travelled to Uncle Luk's flat. As I looked out the window, I noticed the little differences. How all the cars are a little stubbier and have smaller engines. How all the trees look ill and a little bare. After dropping off our things, we went to dinner at the Metropolitan restaurant and were amazed by a huge meal. After too many courses, we were completely stuffed, and I have been motivated to duplicate their "Two Layers Milk".
Now I'm sitting on Uncle Luk's couch, and am typing this entry. I tried in vain to get a stable wireless connexion from somewhere, but it seems like there's too much concrete and re-bar to contact any of
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