Wednesday

Aug 22, 2001

I hate flying

I am very cheerful about the fact that instead of working today I'm going on vacation. I get up and finish up the packing, mostly done last night. Our neighbor drives us to the airport.

Our buddy at American is always trying to get us upgrades or something. It never works. There is an improvement today. They send a person to the gate to apologize for the fact that we aren't getting an upgrade.

Still, the flight isn't full in coach and we have an uneventful flight to San Jose. My ears don't do too well but the decongestants finally work. We see farm land, then mountains then the choc-a-bloc valley and we are in San Jose. So far so good.

The San Jose airport seems busy. Our flight is late, later, later. There is a delayed flight to Taipai at the next gate and people everywhere. After the "chef's salad" from the flight we could have done with some decent food. Let's just say that the choices in San Jose were such that the McDonald's had a huge line. Forrest found a scone somewhere and we shared it. Finally, about two and a half hours late, we were off to Portland.

When we arrive, we see someone we know from Austin, waiting for someone else on our plane. Weird.

We get our bag and take off for the cab stand, get one quickly and, in spite of the rain and the rush hour traffic, we are soon at the Heathman Hotel.

We dodge the rain and by 5:30 we are in the Oritalia Restaurant in the Westin hotel having a cocktail and then good food and good wine.

Sleep, sleep, sleep. It's lovely. Maybe this will be a relaxing vacation after all. And seeing rain has been a relief as much as an invconvenience.

Lovely tuna dish trying hard to erase airline experience

JUST TYPING

Up and down
Magic distances covered
Ears exploding
Going somewhere
Else.

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