Thursday April 14, 2005
After months of waiting, I am finally off on another adventure! I was a little nervous approaching this weekend, since I have been fighting off the Nicole-induced sickness for the past two weeks. Nothing like long hours and sickness to just wear a person down. Thankfully, the last two days I have felt much, much better – so I was eager when I woke up this morning to head out to Boston to visit Nathan.
My carrier of choice was American as usual. I mentioned before I wanted to fly Jet Blue, but my desire for the frequent flyer miles and the slightly cheaper ticket sent me to American. I dread flying American from LAX non-stop transcontinental because their than JFK, most of the routes are covered by 737s or worse, MD-80s. So I was not looking forward to a 5+-hour flight on a dinky plane. Especially after flying on the luxurious 777 to Tokyo last year. I noticed when I packed, I kept thinking I was going to Tokyo and that I would need to take all the little things, then I remembered I was going to Boston, so I was able to not sweat the small stuff.
Daniel whisked me to the airport in record time, and thanks to the fact I got my boarding pass last night via the aa.com web site, the airport was a breeze. It still confounds me that LAX is less of a hassle than Ontario or Orange County. Maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t go Jet Blue out of Long Beach. Another annoying trend is the lack of meal service on long haul domestic flights. Not that I really liked the food all that much, but gone are the glory days when I could order the Great American Burger…
The flight actually went fairly well. I was worried at first because the unlucky guy in the middle seat next to me was rather muscular and large. Fortunately a smaller man came up and asked the guy if he’d swap for an aisle seat so he could sit with his wife. Sometimes, you just get lucky. I watched the in-flight movie “National Treasure” which surprisingly didn’t suck as much as I thought it would. How Nicolas Cage gets cast in action-adventure movies, I will never know. He is so much better suited for drama or comedy. The movie did help the time pass, and with the iPod at my side there were really no complaints.
When we arrived, as we were waiting for the orderly exit out the aircraft, the guy behind me was about 2 inches from me. He also kept huffing and puffing with annoyance the longer it took. My suspicions were confirmed when he made a b-line for the bathroom in the gate area. It also reminded me that East Coast people have a harder time with that whole personal space concept. Maybe it is because they don’t have any here.
Nathan was waiting for me at the airport and with minimal fuss, we were out and on the highway. Along the way, we got to see such sites as Fenway Park, Harvard Square, and a few other sites in a circular route back to his pad. The last place of Nathan’s I saw was a small apartment in Paris where the bathroom was in the stairwell. Nathan hadn’t really talked much about his apartment, and I was amazed at how large and luxurious it was. As one would expect, it is tastefully decorated throughout and convenient to all major attractions. It even has a cool balcony out back overlooking the alley with the skyline of Boston in the distance. Tomorrow I am on my own till around 6pm so I will be heading to Boston Common and probably tackle the Freedom walk with the Gorn. It all depends on how adventurous I feel in the morning.
Stay tuned!!
