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MP's Travels
The day started out well, I woke up on time and made it to the airport just fine. The flight out of pasco was okay, but the pilot wasn't all that great. All I can say is that I'm glad I didn't eat that second doughnut.
We landed in SLC on time, only to find out that my connecting flight had been delayed by an hour... great, just great. Since I had time I ate some lunch and mosied around the airport, and bought my host mom that box of chocolates i had put off buying for the last week.
The flight left about an half hour than the original delay, which made me nervous the whole flight to atlanta. If i missed my flight I would have to fly through Santiago Chile... and that wasn't anything that I really wanted to do. I was seated next to a middle aged man who was looking for a pen to write with, and i had one... so we got to talking. We never exchanged names, but he did see my book on Buenos Aires in the seat pocket in front of me and it turned out that he had lived in argentina for two years.
He told me a bunch of interesting things that i don't really remember, and then I took a nap. However, I was very aware that my mouth was hanging wide open, so I woke up. So much for napping on THIS flight.
The captains voice came over the speaker, and he informed us that due to the weather surround areas near atlanta we would have to circle the airport for a few minutes... a few minutes turned into about a half hour, and at this point i had less than 45 minutes to catch my flight connecting to buenos aires. We landed in concourse A, and my flight was going to be in concourse E.
I'm not sure if you have been to the atlanta airport before, but that's a long way. Before we were even at the gat I hat my bags in hand and I'm standing up, ready to go. I started to shove my way to the front -- forgetting all of my manners. At this point I would have pushed the pope over the get HIM out of my way to be where I needed to go. I'm one of the first ten ppl off the plane and as I get off I looked at the flight board, ignoring the time, and saw my flight was at gate E36, and take off running as if my ass has just caught on fire.
I'm weaving my way in and out of the crowd trying to make it to the train which will take me to concourse E. In the midst of dodging what seems to be an army of mother with their doofy, barely able to walk children, I nearly knock down an old man with a walker. I turned around mid sprint and yelled, "sorry gramps!" and kept on going. I wasn't really that sorry, but ppl looked at me weird so i felt it was necessary.
The guy i sat next to told me that after the escalators, I should be to the train pretty fast, and there they were. dashing up the moving stairs i'm practically shoving people out of my way and am irritatingly shouting, "excuse me, excuse me" there the train was, and I slipped through the doors just before they closed on me.
I'm impatiently riding the train, and waiting for concourse e, and once it was there I practically pryed the door open to get out and I took off running again. At this point I'm pretty tired, agitated, sweaty, and pissed off and then I see that gate 36 will be all the way at the end of what looks to be the longest terminal I've ever seen in my life. I finally reach the desk after running for like 5 minutes and as I shove my ticked in the desk guys face he smugly says... "ma'am, this flight was delayed for about 45 minutes!"
yep, that's right... I nearly killed a ton of people by shoving and running... and my flight was not going to be leaving for another 45 minutes or so... Nice. So what's the moral of this story?
·It's not nice to have thoughts of tripping the pope to get somewhere on time.
·You shouldn't run like an idiot through the airport because people stare, and while they might not remember it, I will and it was embarressing.
·and the number one moral? check the damn time of departure WHILE looking for the gate number because you know what, it would have saved me a lot of time and embarressment from running like a fool -- LIKE A FOOL like that.
--If you're reading this... I really am sorry gramps!
After they finally let us board the plane I got seated and ready, and I met a whole team of women rugby players from washington dc. they were pretty nice. Basically this flight was way to damn long, and they served pretty questionable food. By this time I would have eated the arm of the girl sitting next to me, so I ate it anyways. They showed the movie 8 Below, which turns out is about as long and boring as the flight was, and about as good as the fake cheese spread they give out with their card board crackers... Thanks Delta!
Any how, I finally made it to Buenos Aires, and it took over 20 minutes to finally see my bags whip around the deadly baggage claim trap. They weren't hard to spot though, thanks to the eye sore luggage tags mandy bought me! :)
The car the CCIS people were supposed to have waiting for us wasn't there so Claudia, the lady I was meeting, shoved me into a cab and I was on my way to meet the host family I'd been given.
I rung the bell after my 45 minute death ride with mr. let's talk and text on our cell phones the whole ride... and lady on the loud speaker shouts a friendly HOLA! to me... holy crap, what do you say to that... I finally spit out in spanish that my name was marypat and then she said something I really didn't understand... and I stood waiting for her.
She finally came down and we squeezed into the smallest elevator I've been on in my life and made it to the 4th floor, apartemento 9. She showed me my room, how to use the keys, the bathroom, and my room. I gaver her the presents and showed her the photo album and then she said she had to go to work. I unpacked my stuff, into the closet, bathed myself with antibacterial wipes, and took a nap for about 2 hours.
After Gisele, my host mom, was back she took me to get an "adaptador" for my hair appliances, and then to the ATM where I took out what I thought was 400 dollars, but really was pesos... so I only have like 130 USD to my name right now.
Later she ordered Empanadas for dinner and I met her boyfriend of 10 years... and I don't know his name... but his english is about as good as my spanish... so it was a good time. Then I slept. yep... that's all for day one!
This morning I woke up, showered, and got ready because I had to meet the rest of the group at the University de Belgrano... Gisele put me in a taxi because she didn't want me to walk in the rain. and then I met the rest of the group after my 6 peso cab ride... which is about 2 bucks. then we went to a cafe and I ordered water... without bubbles... cause these weirdos like to drink soda water... yuck. and now I'm at the internet cafe. I think I should go because I think we're going over the gisele's boyfriends house to watch the argentina match for futbol... yay... hours of boring soccer... I can't wait.
I'm going to post some pictures now... so check em out.
I will update probably on monday after the examen nivel.. or the placement test.
I'm outtie 5000.
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