the stick, the stone and the puddle

or should i say part 1b, however given it’s written on the 15th of december, i’d say it’s part 2. so onto the flight, airbus 340, plenty of space…or so i ‘thought’. reserved a seat by the window, sit down…and besides me sits a typical american…yes a typical 120 kg american. i know he paid for his seat, but why does he have to take half of mine in the process of sitting down? so in my mind i’m getting ready of 10 hours of mr. mcdonalds sharing my seat with me. in the meantime, and i’m assuming one of the flight attendants might have seen my face…or simply just didn’t want to be in my shoes. it appears, a few rows in front…a set of chairs was empty. so she kindly tells the gentleman besides me that he can have more space if he so desires (the relief…) by moving forward. at which point he turns to me and says ‘i’m moving up in the world’…i’m thinking…with a few more like ‘you’ and our luggage limit will decrease by 50%…to each our own i guess. i’m not discriminating, but with all due respect why do i have to endure losing part of my seat, be uncomfortable for 10 hours because i’m not 250 pounds… for the next 10 hours, i had the pleasure of moving, breathing properly and stretching.

the other neat thing was the use of two personal monitors. one was set onto the movie i was watching, and the other on the one i was planing to watch. why you ask? well they don’t end at the same time, so i figured i’d take advantage of the fact i have two for my own entertainment. quite a variety of movies offered, from newer to classics. first choice, well i just had to see ‘breakfast at tiffany’s’. never seen, heard of it…so i figured it’s a good way to start the trip. sound quality, well i had to listen to the whole thing in mono, given only one of the head phones was working, regardless of which way the jacks were plugged-in. the movie was worth the effort, highly recommended. flight starts, and i intended to take full advantage of the two complimentary alcoholic beverages they offered. and what better way to re-live the summer than not by drinking some carlsberg, after-all it’s danish and i’m flying danish, at least till munich. after that i have to fly with tarom, i don’t recall ever flying with them. so this should be an interesting adventure. given that my first choice in flight was canceled and they were so kind to add an extra day in munich for me. at least a phone call resolved the issue, but now instead of a direct flight to sibiu…i’m flying to bucharest and then sibiu.

now i sit, in copenhagen without free internet – i guess i’m asking for much…waiting for the minutes to pass to embark on my flight to munich. where i shall spend the night. at least i get to sleep in a bed. that’s something to be looking forward to. that’s the one city i forgot to check on. no clue what the weather is at this point, and all i know is that the hotel with my reservation is within 5 km from the airport.

as i’m writing this i have to suffer due to lack of free wi-fi in microsoft’s backyard. yes, i’m in seattle as i’m writing this, in a txt document rather than right into the blog itself, drinking out of the tasteless un-sweet white chocolate mocha from ‘seattle’s best coffee’. you’ve probably seen my rants about free wifi and how every place should have at least one option to log onto the internet. yes, for cheap bastards as yours truly. nothing to be ashamed off, but if starbucks can reverse its decision and once again offer free wifi because of loss of customers, why can’t it be offered everywhere else. hospitals in vancouver offer free wi-fi (hopefully I won’t get into to much trouble for divulging this one), some restaurants have finally joined in (yes thank you sammy j peppers), and other various places.

the first thing i should probably explain is what the four letters stand for, but i won’t. it’s not important what the letters stand for, it’s more or less what they mean together, whispered in the appropriate order, at the right time. the journey started on the morning of the 14th of december. for the first time in ‘way to long to remember’, vancouver was hit with snow storms and temperatures under -5C at night. wasn’t much prettier in the morning, snow falling, freezing temperature and the requirement to bus from downtown vancouver to seatac international. all sounds rather good, decided to take ‘quick coach lines’. not a bad decision, at first considering they allowed me to change my departure time from 10am to 7:45am once the snow warnings were in effect and they offer, are you ready for this, free wi-fi on their buses. safe to say that helped with what was to follow.

make it to the bus early enough to make sure i don’t rush, and try not to stress. what would you know, the streets of vancouver are not all cleared. keep in mind, friday was the first snow storm. the snow fall for sunday morning was announced…however vancouver just doesn’t learn. clean the snow…make life safer on the roads. anyhow, as you’d expect due to the uncleaned snow on half the roads the bus arrived at the stop roughly 15 minutes later than expected. bus driver was pretty nice however, a bit slow, but nice. once everyone is on board, luggage placed inside…we’re off to the races. i’m thinking…it’s only 15-20 minutes…my plane leaves in roughly 10 hours…i’m good to go. we drive less than 2 km. my ipod is blasting away…and the bus stops. it’s probably a stop, i continue to pay attention to my laptop…then i see the driver walk through the bus and sort of try to explain something…by the time i take my headphones out…i hear “we’ll either get a replacement bus, which takes about 35 minutes, or they’ll come fix it which should take 20 minutes’. and he leaves…i figured…well at least i have 10 hours…half an hour passes…nothing…45 minutes pass…nothing…the door to the bus is left open…the bus is not on…and it’s getting rather cold in the bus…after all outside…it was only roughly -1C. eventually the second bus shows up. the luggage gets moved…the passengers move as well…and we’re on our way. only about 1.5 hours late. we make it to the boarder…everybody off the bus!!! grab your belongings and proceed to get inspected…good part, our bus was the only one there…so the inspection took almost an hour.

as we get back on the bus, everyone sort of sits wherever there’s space. of course, there’s at least one person that has to interrogate someone (me) if the space they’re sitting in is the same one prior to the border cross. at which point i’m essentially responding with…my seat was also taken plus there’s no assigned seating…i guess she thought she was already aboard her flight to the bahamas. we make it to seatac…in one piece and with an empty laptop battery. being early has its advantages…check-in started almost 4 hours prior to takeoff (that’s right 3pm). first in line, got my bags checked…made it through security…had to ‘undress’…take my shoes off, belt off…good thing i managed to keep my jeans on. and now i’m sitting waiting for boarding…with my laptop connected to one of the only plugs i managed to see. gotta charge it up…the flight…she’s a long one…