The first of many, I hope...

A persistent fear

A lot of times when I have just sent an email to someone important like my supervisor, I worry that I accidentally signed "Love" (or some Spanish equivalent like "Besos") and sent it without thinking.

As far as I know, I've never actually done it, but I still worry about it. Is this weird?

:) xxx

Random Bullets of Airports

Having spent my time in seven airports in less than one month, I've come to realize a lot about airports and airlines. Since I started in Oxford, I had been flying regularly in and out of Newark Airport on Virgin Atlantic, which kinda happened by mistake since I didn't understand the whole "this flight is operated by" thing and thought I was flying Continental. (I had picked Continental because they had an amazing baggage allowance.) But as one year turned into three, I had to find other ways to get to the UK, and those other ways had to involve transfer flights. (There are no direct flights from Bradley, my local airport.) It made me realize that Virgin isn't quite so fantastic, and that some airports are far better than others.

Some thoughts:

• Virgin Atlantic planes always smell the same. And it's not a pleasant thing. No wonder I am always hyperventilating at the end - I realize that I have been in recirculated air for about 23 hours, so I am dying to breathe normal air.
• The International Terminal at Dulles is far nicer than the National ones.
• Airports are never as big as they look on the map. Maybe it's because I've been through Heathrow now - nothing is quite like Heathrow!
• This time, I flew to the UK via US Airways on my dad's frequent flyer miles. I liked US Airways alot. Their lines moved quickly, their flight attendants were helpful and knowledgeable and their planes seemed far more spacious than Virgin's.
• Philadelphia Airport gives you the wonderful sensation that you're breathing fresh air when you're in there.
• When making connecting flights, it's always good to make them on the same airline. Then you have fewer people to deal with. I learned this the hard way.
  
• San Diego Airport has an amazing view!
• Southwest Airlines has some of the best customer service I've ever dealt with. I had a problem with my online checkin on the day of my flight, so I called them. I was only on hold for a couple of minutes, and the customer service rep (who was not in India, as far as I could tell) handled my question easily. Even if you miss your connecting flight, it's very easy to get on another flight with them.
  
• On the other hand, ALWAYS bring food when you're going on a Southwest flight. You never know if you're going to be delayed or rerouted, and they only serve little snacks on their flights.
• I need to buy a power adapter for my laptop. Or a spare battery. And a wireless card.
• Philadelphia Airport has free wifi for students, but not in Terminal A. I learned this the hard way, too.
• This past trip to Heathrow was the best I've ever slept on a plane. This was because there was no one next to me, so I was able to raise the armrest and stretch out. It was great!
• This was also the first time I've used Terminal 1 at Heathrow. It's clearly older than Terminal 3, but it seems smaller and easier to use. Always a good thing!
• I'm actually looking forward to my return flight to Philadelphia, so I can try a Cheesesteak the next time.

I think that's it for now. Back to work!

Kxxx

Long-awaited San Francisco post

Sorry for keeping that depressing post up for so long. I'm not necessarily unhappy being in Oxford, and it's certainly not the people. I think it's the financial aspect (racking up so many loans), plus being kinda tired of academia. I don't really want to discuss it, but I needed to get it off my chest.

Anyway, I owe you a post about San Francisco, which was amazing. I went for six days and stayed with Chrissie, and got to see Christian and Adam along the way. You can check out all my pics on Flickr, and all my videos on YouTube.

The first day, I got up at 4 am to get to the airport for 5. It turns out that my first flight, which was going to stop in Chicago, was canceled. They put me on a later flight which stopped in Chicago and landed in San Diego, and I was supposed to transfer there. It then turned out that the San Diego flight was late, so I was bumped to a later flight to San Fran. Instead of 11:20 am, I arrived at 5:20 pm, which reeealllly sucked. I was lucky that I had time in San Diego, though, because otherwise I wouldn't have had time to eat (Southwest doesn't do meals on its flights).

Chrissie picked me up, and we picked her dad up along the way. We went to dinner in the Mission District and enjoyed delicious Mexican food at a taquería. Afterwards we went to Twin Peaks and saw San Francisco at night, which was amazing! I couldn't take good pictures - they kept coming out blurry. But it was beautiful. When we got back, Chrissie surprised me with a birthday cake from the Chinese bakery. I was pretty tired after the long day, so I went to bed around 10 pm that night.

The next day we went to Berkeley, where Chrissie went as an undergrad and where Christian and Adam were doing research. We saw a bit of everything - all over the campus - and ate more Mexican food. Berkeley feels very Californian - much more laid back than New England. It was a gorgeous day and we didn't have to wear coats at all. When we got back that night we ate delicious Chinese food in Balboa Park. It was very different from Chinese food that I'm used to, which is probably meant for Westerners.

On Wednesday we hit all the touristy spots in the Fisherman's Wharf area. We rode Cable Cars and Streetcars, walked down Lombard Street, saw Pier 39 and the Embarcadero and the Ferry Building and Alcatraz and the Bridges and sea lions and all that. We ate clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls and then later on we had delicious Dhungess (sp?) crab. Amazing! I bought a lot of souvenirs that day. In addition to seafood, we also ate a lot of chocolate - San Francisco is the home of Ghiradelli and Shaffenberger chocolate. (And who could forget the delicious cupcakes in Ghiradelli Square???) We also went to a mall with curved escalators and a huge Hello Kitty store (apparently the US headquarters are in San Fran). We had a lot of leftovers from our previous night's meals, so we had them for dinner that night. It was a great chance to relax after a long day - it's hard to eat out for every single meal that often!

Thursday was reserved for touristy things outside of the Fisherman's Wharf. We met up with Chrissie's fiancé Collin, who has an amazing panoramic view of the city from his family's apartment. He and his dad joined us for a variety of sights that day: the Painted Ladies (the Full House houses!), Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park, the Coit Tower (from a distance), Baker Beach, the Sea Cliff area (where Robin Williams lives!), Chinatown, and Fort Mason - not necessarily in that order, but we got through a lot that day! We had dim sum for lunch in Chinatown and visited a fortune cookie factory, which was really cool because it was the same kind of alleyway where Will Smith dropped off his kid at daycare in the Pursuit of Happyness. For dinner that night we went to Japantown and had shabu shabu (I think that's what it's called) - a sort of Japanese fondue. We walked around the Japanese markets and took pictures with the beautiful cherry blossoms, which reminded me of Washington DC (which I love!).

We had checked off a lot of things on our "to-do" list, so we made a last minute decision to visit Stanford on Friday. Chrissie and I had a huge breakfast in Burlingame that day and then visited the Pez Museum, which was very kitschy but fun. We also visited the See's Candy headquarters, where they make very good toffee (and give out lots of free chocolate samples!). Then we headed to Stanford in Palo Alto, which is about an hour away. It was kinda funny to be there, since Chrissie is from Berkeley (their biggest rival) and I'm from UConn territory, who was about to play Stanford in the Final Four that weekend. But they had an amazingly beautiful church, where we took a lot of pictures. On the way back we ate at In-n-Out, an apparently Californian chain famous for its burgers. We also stopped at the Google campus in Mountain View (we didn't go in), then headed back. For dinner that night, we went to a sushi place that was obviously very good - it had a very long wait. I had never had sushi before, so I was surprised that I liked it. My favorite were the ones with the salmon - probably very boring, but it was good. I also ate seaweed salad, something you would not usually find on the East Coast!

I didn't have to be at the airport until about 10:30ish on Saturday morning (plus they don't live that far away), so Chrissie's dad made breakfast for us that morning: pancakes, eggs and bacon. Chrissie and Collin drove me to the airport, and I headed home.

I had a stopover in Chicago this time around, so I took my time in the airport to linger around and enjoy authentic Chicago hot dogs. I'd like to go back and visit Chicago some day and not just linger in its airports, so if anyone's in the area, let's meet up! ;)

I can't believe how I managed to bring home all my stuff - chocolates, toffees, fortune cookies, postcards, sweatshirts, stuffed animals, crab eating forks, etc. etc. etc...and I only brought one tiny suitcase! I wanted to bring home a sourdough bread, but I had no idea how I'd carry it home. (They had cool ones in the shape of crabs and turtles!)

I had never been that far West before, so it was a fantastic experience. It's cool to see how people live in different parts of the country - it's totally different from Connecticut. I've always felt that it was weird that I've lived in another country, but never seen the other side of my own country...next time I want to go to San Diego (the view from the airport was amazing!) and drive over the border to Mexico. Chrissie says she's done that before, so I think it would be fun.

Back to my Sopranos marathon. Laterz!

xxx

Return

I owe you a long post about my wonderful trip to San Francisco. In the meantime, check the pics on Flickr.

Once again, I am packing to return to Oxford. And once again, I am dreading it. I don't know if it's fear of flying, but it's a weird feeling because I get it every time. I was sad when I was leaving San Francisco, but it was not because I didn't want to go home - it was because I didn't want to go back to Oxford.

Maybe I just need to get a real job next year.