Fight (and) flight

Originally written on Tuesday, 11pm LA time, or Wednesday, 1am my usual Eastern time zone.

Yes, that's right. Part of my experience of flying across the United States and to Beijing is the fighting part - whether it's against United Airways, sleep, or the wifi at LAX.

I was lucky that my family likes to be early for everything, because upon entering Boston Logan Airport, I discovered that the United Airways system was down. Even though I had checked in online and had a boarding pass, I still had to check in two bags (and before you say, "That's a lot!", remember that I have to bring about twenty books, besides the usual clothes, bathroom stuff, school stuff, etc.). Checking in bags meant that I had to wait 45 minutes in line. There was a fantastically long line, which made for good conversation with other people (and I did witness two people flirt and exchange numbers in the process).

I made the mistake of not eating dinner, since I had had a large lunch a few hours earlier. To my surprise (and despair), I found that even during a 6 hours flight across the country, United Airlines does not supply snacks. Nope. Just drinks, so at least I was hydrated. Before I boarded the plane, I did get to have what I thought was my last American coffee.

6 hours later in LAX, I was having another "last American coffee" (more Starbucks). One good thing about United was that it provided a movie and some TV, so I got to enjoy some "Big Bang Theory" (I skipped over the "Three Stooges" movie and the episodes of "Nashville" and the show with the numbers kid and the guy from 24). I stayed up the whole time, thinking that I could sleep on the way to Beijing. It would've been hard to sleep on my United flight anyway, since there were crying babies in front and behind me.

As soon as I got to LAX, I scarfed down a panini, which was a pleasant find (I will seriously eat any kind of combination of bacon, egg, and cheese). Even though it was 1:40 am my time, it was still 10:40 pm LA time. Through my blurry haze of sleepiness, I managed to eat then get some more Starbucks (the guy asked if I had a red eye flight, to which I replied, "No, I just had a 6 hour flight and now another 12 hour one", and he replied, "Good luck"). I'm running on a caramel latte right now, so hopefully by the time I crash, I will be on the plane.

While standing in that long United Airways line in Logan, I learned that LAX was not too great of an airport. Now that I'm here, I can see why people would say that. I had to do crazy things to switch terminals to get from my domestic flight to my international one. It wasn't even a matter of walking around and following signs; I had to ask A LOT of people for directions (thank you, helpful airport people!). Apparently, I was supposed to go down some stairs, go outside, take a shuttle to switch terminals, ride up an elevator, and go through security again. LAX, you don't make it easy.

I'm planning to meet someone from my same study abroad program, since we're going on the same flight. She's not getting to the gate until 12 am (I think she lives nearby), so I've got a couple of hours to kill. Unfortunately, I had to write this on OpenOffice (my sad version of Microsoft Word) because LAX's wifi doesn't seem to work.

As I'm sitting here, it might be a little foreboding that I'm a little freaked out by how many Chinese people are surrounding me. Coming from a community where Asians are scarce, I always need to go through a transition period so that I can get used to so many Asians in one place. It's pretty funny how people are spending their time, though. I spied many people sleeping, two Caucasians reading from Kindles, a group of Chinese guys playing cards in the corner, and a Chinese girl taking pictures of herself on her camera. Maybe they already know wifi doesn't work here.