Getting to Cambridge

Let's start with the marathon trip.

I stupidly got an early flight, so I set my alarm at 3:45 am and started my day then. All the other Supershuttle people were Techers (one technically didn't have to be but probably was) of some form or another---not a particular surprise for the morning after finals. LAX (or at least the American Airlines terminal) had long waits and I couldn't print out my own tickets because of the international component of the flight, so the longer line was my destination.

I flew to Boston, where I had a 3.5 hour layover for my next flight. In principle, I could have tried to find a later LA flight to Boston when choosing flights initially, but I'm guessing this was somehow cheaper. (I don't remember at this point.) Of course, the extra time gave me a chance to eat solid food (which I had done sparingly for 3-4 days) and to recharge my iPod. (Normally, the recharging wouldn't be necessary and I also brought my old iPod as a back-up for the long journey just in case.) I read a little bit, hacked out a few more lungs (real life once again imitating D & D, damnit) and am now almost done with Promise of the Witch-King. The movie they showed on the first flight was A Shot in the Dark, which is the 2nd Pink Panther film. However, I own it and had seen it relatively recently (maybe 1.5 years ago) and wasn't in the mood for it. Definitely a solid choice, but it didn't work under the circumstance. I was also going to check out some Depeche Mode videos on computer, but the download that made things work a little bit hadn't finished the job. I was going to ask Lemming for help on that, but then I got really sick and this was one of the things that had to go by the wayside for the present. Anyway, I listened to a lot of music during my travels.

On the second flight, I was asked to change seats because the guy next to me was so large that he was creating a fire hazard in the aisle. I moved to an aisle seat. I normally prefer window ones, but aisle definitely beats window + second-hand obesity. The second flight had an in-seat TV, but the interesting movies are all for the way back. (I'll be seeing Wallacwe and Gromit, which I inadvertently missed [or maybe it's still playing], as well as Sky High, which isn't too exciting but which seems interesting and got a lot of praise.) Most of the movies were Christmas movies because, you know, people actually want to see Elf again. There exist Christmas movies I want to see (like The Ice Harvest, which I probably need to do soon), but the ones they were showing weren't among that list. And why is it that just because it's December, that for the entire month about 2/3 of the music stations and movies on the airplane have to be Christmas music/movies? I understand having a dedicated Christmas channel, but this is ridiculous. Somebody must like this, but I haven't met too many people who do.

As we were landing, we had a spectacular view of a HUGE fire (while it was still dark outside, so while I don't want to be callous, this thing looked amazingly cool as a result) that apparently arose from some sort of explosion in an oil warehouse. In looking out the window, one could see an enormous ball (well, not quite ball-shaped) of red orange contrasting sharply against the dark background and amidst must smaller dots from various lights. I suspect this explosion/fire may have made the US news because it looked like something of a pretty large magnitude. (Note: I recognize the seriousness of disasters like this and certainly don't root for them, but I also have to be honest with myself and not ignore the fact that it still looked extremely cool from the airplane. As a postscript, on looking at google news, this apparently is not just in the news but a historically large fire.)

The bus from London to Cambridge was a shorter ride than it was supposed to be because there weren't that many people on it and nobody needed any of the intermediate stops. It was still over 1.5 hours, but I was really feeling crappy and grateful to be done a bit early. The bus driver was one of two dwarfs (by personality, not by stature) I met yesterday, and I'll have a separate entry on this phenomenon later. During the bus ride, I heard that Richard Pryor had died. I plan to have an entry on that after all the Cambridge stuff.

The bus arrived at the bus station in Cambridge, and then I took a cab to Wolfson Court. The nearby campus is St. John's College (for Gazebo's benefit, as he'll know where I am in the city).

I'll have some more later. I need to mention stuff about the living facilities and an incident at a coffee/sandwhich shop.



I arrived at Heathrow and then took a bus to Cambridge.