one day after returning, i can detail much mayhem.

one long day. awake slightly earlier (amc showed diabolik: how cool is that? esp. after its weird historical licensing controversy) to complete packing for the early hotel checkout, taxivan to work where the usual last minute stuff surfaces (and free chinese lunch!) whereby everything has to be done before the airport limo picks me and rides the brake like a bicycle pedal. long line at the american airlines checkin counter at laguardia, in front of a dyed-redhead rock chick, looking like franka potente from run lola run with a texas accent and a leopard-print suitcase with a slayer tour pass. find out there's no mailboxes in the airport after a few someones took some planes into some buildings </sarcasm> (psst. check out these exclusive world trade centre cleanup pictures) so i'm left carrying my unmailed postcards and letters again (last time: no stamps no content. progress is a small-footed creature sometimes. after a quick survey, head to the gate.

one thing that i must say drives me nuts in airports is the failure for airlines to call gate changes. there is no actual point to being early at your supposed gate: it changes 30 minutes before boarding and there is no announcement. you drift off, read something, stare anxiously out the window to the landing planes (laguardia and denpasar airport freak me out endlessly by landing so close to the water) and start to wonder why there are less and less people. you get up, find a viewscreen and notice the gate change, go to the new counter in a tizzy and ask the rep why nothing was said. then they wonder why your ticket has the wrong gate printed on. hooray.

another thing: air canada has a delayed boarding time, but everyone's on the plane in 10 minutes. american airlines has a prompt boarding time, but it takes about 30 minutes for everyone to get onboard. why? there's no difference in leisureliness or passenger behaviour.

pilot says we're making good time and we'll land 20 minutes early in perfect visibility. then, a big black cloud appears with some violent turbulence and we're left to circle overhead pearson airport for ...20 minutes before landing. who's early now.

why, you're early to the biggest lineup on earth: the terminal 3 canadian customs queue! simply wait 80 minutes until canada decides how full it is before letting you in. as well, no cell phone call will properly work because the airport turned off the cell phone towers closeby, your luggage will be conveniently dumped off the carousel, the flight number will disappear from the screen and be discarded in a big pile of suitcases, bags and boxes in the middle of the floor for you to find. then find the two people assigned to pick you up an hour and a half ago, who managed to get lost a few times driving to the airport, and then proceed to do so when you forget which direction the 401 goes, everyone wants krispy kreme, and no one really knows where it is.

then wake up, put a broken contact lens in one eye, wonder why it hurts, catch up on work life in your soon-to-be-former work location before chitchatting with the people, finding miscommunications stalking you and the consequent straightening out (you want what when?), doing lunch with a slightly different pair of people at the glorious shanghai cowgirl, do a surprise party for a happy couple-to-be, get the faux-mo trimmed, deflate the bike's rear tire and hustle like a madman to duke's to get a new inner tube before they close, which they kinda are, but they sell it to you if you replace it yourself, which you kinda do, so josh helps out, but you keep screwing up, so he stays a bit later as much as he can and everyone's hands get dirty. bad news is that the rearwheel doesn't go on properly, josh says to come back tomorrow, doesn't accept money ("just buy our stuff in the future and don't say it's my fault!") so you bike uphill home with a wheel scraping along the brakepads like a wheezy old man.

but the fun can't legally stop. no. it's expense time at the castle now. and upload photos. later.