in which i learn my lesson
May. 15th, 2009 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ontologyThe weather is so spectacular that I've brought Yvaine outside while I work on my immense new collection of photographs and pretend that Kyra is still within speaking distance. Ah, yes: I left Alaska on Monday night and arrived in my home... well, on Wednesday morning. It was one of my more interesting journeys, and that is the way I say it to keep my mildly optimistic outlook. The flight itself was perfectly all right; I mostly fell asleep, and the only irritation was when I discovered that my earbuds had stopped working (well, and the bit where I didn't actually have any food and mostly subsisted on tiny tiny packets of peanuts and spice cookies and complimentary orange juice, which I ordered instead of water every time on account of it having actual nutrients).
Um, wait, also there was the bit at the beginning where my suitcase had somehow gained fifteen pounds over the week, which meant it was over the weight limit, and I either had to pay ninety dollars for overweight baggage, twenty-five to spilt it into two bags (they provide plastic ones), or see if I could cram enough things into my carry-ons to bring the weight down to regulation. So there Kyra and I were, on the floor, pulling, uh, mostly books and shoes out of my suitcase and fitting them into my bags like puzzle pieces (where is Hermione's bigger-on-the-inside bag when you need it?) and we actually did it and I am still kind of impressed. Of course I had been priding myself on how light and easy-access I'd gotten my main carry-on before then...
And then Kyra and I took a really really really long time to say goodbye, and it was sad.
There was a long layover in Minneapolis that I don't actually remember much -- I wandered around, and I bought a five-dollar McDonalds breakfast and called some bus stations and my mother and slept. See, nobody was available to fetch me from the Pittsburgh airport, so I was meant to get bus tickets, except I procrastinated a lot and it was Very Bad, and then every. single. person. I talked to gave me different information. One website said there was no way to get to a bus station from the airport; another said there was a train leaving but you had to have booked a ticket beforehand; someone at the company told me that it didn't matter, I could just pay the driver or pay when I got to my destination; and when I finally arrived at the Pittsburgh airport and had fetched my suitcase and gone out to the bus waiting point, none of these options actually seemed to correspond with reality, and buses to anywhere in particular did not seem to actually exist. Long, ugly, pacing-round-the-airport-phoning-home-panicking-and-crying story short, I did something crazy and hopped an airport bus going to the nearest Greyhound station (borrowing forty cents from a kindly man with a Slavic accent; I had plenty of money but no cash!). My mood went through so many dramatic shifts in that forty-five minutes -- immature hysteria, end-of-my-rope stubborn determination, then elation at the atmosphere of the bus, all the people in it, and the city rushing by the windows, and joy at walking around Pittsburgh myself.
And then I got to the Greyhound station and the first bus leaving for my town was... at five in the morning.
At this point I was still kind of on a high from Having Crazy Plans and Pittsburgh (I love this city so! I'd hardly choose it over Boston, but it's fascinating -- trees trees trees! and industry!), so... if I panicked I didn't pay much attention? I don't know. It would have still been incredibly difficult for my family to pick me up -- my mother's car can't make that kind of distance, and Dad was on a Mobile Crisis call, and anyway it's a two hour drive, two hours out of anyone's way to fix a problem that was pretty much entirely my fault for not being prepared. After phoning my mother and talking it out, I eventually decided just to spend the night at the bus station.
Well. No terrible traumatic event occured, but I will never do that again. It is best not spoken of. Bus stations are some of the most soul-killing places on earth, and I have this irrational oversensitivity to environment -- it was so ugly, and all of the people in it seemed... aimless and depressing and fairly ghetto (Mum was worried about my safety -- uh, I kind of was too, actually, but there were security guards everywhere) and I just plunged into the most awful depression... it took me several hours after I got home to get it out of my system. Waited for hours and hours, sleeping fitfully and then not sleeping at all, and finally my bus left and Mum picked me up when I arrived in town and we went home THE END.
I spent much of Wednesday and yesterday trying to get my sleeping habits back in shape and mostly failing.
So, yes. Missing my Kyra kind of a lot. It's nice to be home, and the weather's spectacular, but the whole world is better when your best friend is around.
Um, wait, also there was the bit at the beginning where my suitcase had somehow gained fifteen pounds over the week, which meant it was over the weight limit, and I either had to pay ninety dollars for overweight baggage, twenty-five to spilt it into two bags (they provide plastic ones), or see if I could cram enough things into my carry-ons to bring the weight down to regulation. So there Kyra and I were, on the floor, pulling, uh, mostly books and shoes out of my suitcase and fitting them into my bags like puzzle pieces (where is Hermione's bigger-on-the-inside bag when you need it?) and we actually did it and I am still kind of impressed. Of course I had been priding myself on how light and easy-access I'd gotten my main carry-on before then...
And then Kyra and I took a really really really long time to say goodbye, and it was sad.
There was a long layover in Minneapolis that I don't actually remember much -- I wandered around, and I bought a five-dollar McDonalds breakfast and called some bus stations and my mother and slept. See, nobody was available to fetch me from the Pittsburgh airport, so I was meant to get bus tickets, except I procrastinated a lot and it was Very Bad, and then every. single. person. I talked to gave me different information. One website said there was no way to get to a bus station from the airport; another said there was a train leaving but you had to have booked a ticket beforehand; someone at the company told me that it didn't matter, I could just pay the driver or pay when I got to my destination; and when I finally arrived at the Pittsburgh airport and had fetched my suitcase and gone out to the bus waiting point, none of these options actually seemed to correspond with reality, and buses to anywhere in particular did not seem to actually exist. Long, ugly, pacing-round-the-airport-phoning-home-panicking-and-crying story short, I did something crazy and hopped an airport bus going to the nearest Greyhound station (borrowing forty cents from a kindly man with a Slavic accent; I had plenty of money but no cash!). My mood went through so many dramatic shifts in that forty-five minutes -- immature hysteria, end-of-my-rope stubborn determination, then elation at the atmosphere of the bus, all the people in it, and the city rushing by the windows, and joy at walking around Pittsburgh myself.
And then I got to the Greyhound station and the first bus leaving for my town was... at five in the morning.
At this point I was still kind of on a high from Having Crazy Plans and Pittsburgh (I love this city so! I'd hardly choose it over Boston, but it's fascinating -- trees trees trees! and industry!), so... if I panicked I didn't pay much attention? I don't know. It would have still been incredibly difficult for my family to pick me up -- my mother's car can't make that kind of distance, and Dad was on a Mobile Crisis call, and anyway it's a two hour drive, two hours out of anyone's way to fix a problem that was pretty much entirely my fault for not being prepared. After phoning my mother and talking it out, I eventually decided just to spend the night at the bus station.
Well. No terrible traumatic event occured, but I will never do that again. It is best not spoken of. Bus stations are some of the most soul-killing places on earth, and I have this irrational oversensitivity to environment -- it was so ugly, and all of the people in it seemed... aimless and depressing and fairly ghetto (Mum was worried about my safety -- uh, I kind of was too, actually, but there were security guards everywhere) and I just plunged into the most awful depression... it took me several hours after I got home to get it out of my system. Waited for hours and hours, sleeping fitfully and then not sleeping at all, and finally my bus left and Mum picked me up when I arrived in town and we went home THE END.
I spent much of Wednesday and yesterday trying to get my sleeping habits back in shape and mostly failing.
So, yes. Missing my Kyra kind of a lot. It's nice to be home, and the weather's spectacular, but the whole world is better when your best friend is around.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-26 03:01 am (UTC)Between the three cities I mentioned, there was definitely an element of "only poor people use this service", as they were all also linked by a high-speed train network. I particularly noticed it on the Paris-London stretch: on the train you check in at the station and head straight through; on the coach, you have to get yourself and all your belongings off the bus & go through customs twice, with the occasional passenger being taken away by the police never to return.
Not having travelled by coach in the rest of Europe, I can't speak accurately for the whole continent, but - given the extensive train network which, along with plane travel, seems to be the main non-car way people get from country to country - I imagine it's much the same.