Back to China

[fbhjr]

I was sick most of last week. I worked from home Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but felt well enough the end of the week to go in.

Friday the folks from my department that got laid off met me and Sean for lunch. They’re all about as happy as you’d expect.

Friday night was game night.

Saturday morning I got up at 2, took a shower and my wife drove me to the airport in Boston.
I had the 5:20 flight to Detroit, and then a 10AM flight to Shanghai from there.

Delta sent me all sorts of email about the flight and lots of reminders to be at the airport at least two hours early.
So, I got there just about 3 for a 5:20 flight.
Delta wasn’t open yet.
They opened at 3:45. There was quite a line, even at that time on a Saturday morning. I was near the front, which helped.
I got all checked in.
(You can only do so much on line as they have to inspect your passport and visa in person.)

Then, security wasn’t open yet. They didn’t open until 4:15.

My flight to Detroit was fine. No one in the middle seat, so plenty of room.

I’m not big on the Detroit airport since I got stuck there in 1981 when the air traffic controllers went on strike. I’m always worried I won’t get out again.
No worries this time.
There was a nice diner kind of restaurant right by my plane and I had a nice breakfast before getting on.

I was in Premium Economy, so only two seats per section. The guy by the window on the plane was wearing something I was very allergic to. No idea what. As is often the case, things I can’t smell set off my allergies.
As soon as I sad down next to him, I started coughing. I couldn’t stop.

This freaked him out and he asked to be moved. As soon as he moved, I stopped coughing.
I had lots of extra room, could see out the window and could use both screens on the seats.
Go cough.
I am glad he moved through, I’m not sure I could have taken 15 hours of it myself.

I tried to sleep on the plane, but didn’t manage much. This is not unusual.

In Shanghai the customs and immigration went much faster than last time. Maybe 40 minutes total instead of the more than 2 hours last time.

The company we’re visiting did have a driver waiting for me, which was very good.
I think he had dropped out of some sort of Anime movie. He was wearing a bright yellow and black checked coat, smoking with a cigarette holder, drove a sports car with neon lighting inside and a collection of moving models of other vehicles on the dashboard.

But, he got me to Suzhou quickly without issue. So, yay.

I checked in to the same hotel, by the giant pants, as in December, called my wife and went to bed.
Now it’s 2AM and I’m awake again, but I’m going to give more sleep a try.

Comments

[palusbuteo]

Aww crap I totally forgot about game nite. I had thought we were skipping Feb.

Hopefully March.

[ravena_kade]

Yay for the guy moving.

[taz_39]

Yay for the guy moving, and would you have requested to move if he hadn't been the one to do it? Just curious if you would've tried to endure it or been like, "Nope, this ain't gonna work."

I've got a similar hang-up about Indianapolis airport because of a bad experience there one time. They delayed our flight, then failed to announce that it had arrived and was boarding. As a result half the passengers that had wandered off (self included) had to RUN to the gate at the very last minute, and I had my trombone with me in a soft case because I'd been assured there'd be room in the overheads, but of course at last-minute boarding there wasn't, so I had to remove my coat, wrap my trombone in it, check the case, and basically smuggle my naked trombone onto the plane where I shoved it on top of some luggage for the duration of the flight. Not only did that give me massive anxiety about how it was doing the whole flight, I was also freezing having had to give up my coat for it, and then we flew into a thunderstorm in NJ and had to circle for nearly two hours, not landing until 2am, by which point I was exhausted, cold, and starving, having not eaten for nearly 12 hours (I was very poor at the time and the flight had been all I could afford.)

Thanks for coming to my trauma dump lol

[fbhjr]

If I had known they had extra seats I would have tried. But, I thought my section was full.
I probably would have just put on the better grade of mask and hope that filtered out whatever was getting to me.
All in all, I’m glad he moved.