**continued from my flight yesterday**

So remember how I said that I had to transfer to Gatwick? Well, my connecting plane to Pristina departs at 10:10am. We were supposed to land in Heathrow at 5:45am. Here’s what basically happened:

We land at 8:00am, we deboard at 8:30am. We conveniently landed at the furthest gate from customs. Several casualties ensued in the massive desperate stampede through the airport.  We reach a crossroads: connecting flights to the left, arrivals the right. I glance at my watch. 8:45am. Do I try to make the transfer with the hour long 80 pound taxi ride? Maybe I can sprint through security at Gatwick…

I make a split-sec decision and decide instead to go to the British Airways desk in Terminal 3 instead. Oh guess what? The only flight to Pristina departs on Monday (two days later). And you know what’s even better news? This flight was a separate ticket, so they can’t get me a new one. The woman looked at me and suggested running and praying for a delay.

9:00am. One hour til departure. 150 people ahead of me in the customs line. 9:30am. The customs agent laughed when he saw my ticket. ‘Enjoy London,’ he said. 9:45am I arrive at the exit of Heathrow. Depressingly, I glance at the sky, bemoaning my fate.

Thus begins the epic search for a new ticket, departing today. An Expedia search showed one result. For $948. Strange stares from passerby accompanied my wail of despair. All my other go-to cheap flight sites wouldn't sell tickets for non-US related flights.  British sites ranged in the 500 pound price range. Stupid exchange rate.

Finally I found a Spanish site selling a flight for 267 euros. I peruse the site and it seems pretty legit. I snag the ticket and receive a confirmation email in the mail saying that they’ll send the ticket number once the credit card is confirmed.  Relieved, I head back to Terminal 1 in Heathrow to chill in a coffee shop and await my new flight at 8pm.

Four hours later, I begin panicking. I still haven’t received my confirmation email. It’s four hours til my plane departs. I send panicked emails to my parents asking if they can call the company (as I don’t have a phone). Three hours to go. I really start panicking. I send emails to the company and they ask me to resend my credit card info.  Oh yeah. Right. Not. I Google the company. On the second page, I find a random blogpost saying “DON'T BUY FROM THIS COMPANY.” Uh ohhhh.

I then furiously Facebook Chat my brother, and together with my dad, and with much confusion, we manage to finally get the charges cancelled off my card. Refusing to be scammed again, I go directly to the Swiss Air website (which was the only airline operating a flight that arrived earlier than Monday) and purchase a new one.

Random fact: a one-way ticket, connecting in Zurich, costs $832. A round trip ticket, also connecting in Zurich, costs $425. So on that note, if anyone is going to be in Pristina and wants to head to either Zurich or London on Friday, June 24th….bidding starts at one bottle of shampoo.

So whew. Finally. 2 hours before departure, I successfully purchase a new ticket. All is well with the world.

The flight to Zurich is uneventful. I sleep through dinner. THIS IS DEVASTING. There is nothing sadder than waking up mid-flight and seeing everyone else with the remnants of food on their tray table. Sure it was probably some really bad mini-sandwich, but that was supposed to be MY really bad mini-sandwich. And I hadn’t eaten since New York =(. I get irrationally bummed and stare out the window.

Upon arriving in Zurich around midnight, I follow the crowds looking for a place to camp out for the night, since my flight to Pristina doesn’t leave til 7am. I see nothing. I arrive at customs. Uh oh. A midnight jaunt around Switzerland might not be the best idea at the moment.

A sign for connecting flights points straight ahead so I head that direction. Everyone stares at me. I staunchly ignore them, pretending I know what I’m doing. No one else is heading my direction. There are no corners for me to hide behind. I keep walking, conscious of the stares on my back. I get to the end of the hall and the doors are locked. Ah shit. Now what.

Unable to turn around and face my stupidity, I turn left instead and go downstairs to the inner terminal transportation train. Which aren’t running, of course. Laugh what you will, but it has never occurred to me that airports shut down for the night. Because I’m weak, I hide behind a pillar to avoid embarrassment, waiting until the customs line dies down to rejoin everyone else. I get to the ticket counter and the lady is like ‘you know we have a dayroom, right?’ Actually, I have no idea what a dayroom is, but it sounds better than wandering the streets of Zurich.

The lady points me back the direction that I came, and I embark on a long twisted hunt for the elusive dayroom. Small twisted corridors, up broken escalators and finally I find it! Yayyy. It's a place where you can buy beds for the night, but pshhh. I’ll take this perfectly good bench fo’ free.

I actually end up working on my blog design all night, but theoretically I would be sleeping about now, so I’m gunna go ahead and call it a night. See ya tomorrow!

It’s Friday, Friday….

I’m sorry. I had to do it. There are seldom few absolutes in life, but this is one of them. That, and the fact that you will get your period the day you decide to wear white pants.

Speaking of Friday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh8_jMI1OLU

My morning adventures in New York city can probably be summed up as follows:

1.       Nash and I part ways as we both had pressing matters to attend to: Nash had to get to work, and I had to find coffee.

2.       A Starbucks on every block, my ass. I had to walk five blocks to find caffeine.

3.       I am now the proud owner of a New York City Library Card and a NYPL Print Card

 [Random side note: I’ve seen more beggars in a one block radius on Franklin Street than I’ve seen in the entire city of New York. Where are they?]

I exit the New York Public Library to discover that angels decided to start bowling in the heavens. Loudly. With damp sidewalks, brisk winds, and loud thunder, the city became charged with electricity. And with umbrella venders.

Fortunately I was on 42^nd and Fifth and the subway station I needed was on 42^nd and Eighth. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to look at street signs and ended up taking the most convoluted route possible. Let me draw it for you:

I ended up getting a very scenic tour of the area. Around 47th and Broadway, I encountered what only can be known as The Wrath of God.  Basically, the heavens broke forth, drowning whoever stood in its path. It wasn’t quite to the Chitzen Itza level, but it was close.

[Full story: http://mexicanantics2010.blogspot.com/2010/06/chicken-pizza-worldly-wonder.html]

I survived….barely.

Luckily, despite the rain, the flight was still on schedule. Yayyy. [I was worried, especially because I only had four hours to through customs at Heathrow, transfer the 45 miles to Gatwick, and get through security there.  During morning rush hour in London.] I entertained myself by watching a leash child run backwards down a moving sidewalk.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll highlight the trip:

·         Plane sat on the runway. For 4 hours. And they wouldn’t turn on the tvs.

·         Though it was a close one, the woman sitting next to me pulled out her secret weapon, and used her excess weight to ensure a victory in the Armrest Battle.

·         When a couple was bumped out of first class and reclaimed their empty exit row window seats, a resigned sigh was emitted by everyone within a 5 row radius.

·         The food was surprisingly awesome. The company? Enjoys reading over my shoulder.

As the day changes to night which changes to day, Friday switched to Saturday. Thus ending this blogpost!

Good morninggg. Today, I take off on my big adventure at the ripe ole time of 4am. Let’s recap the past day, shall we?

·         I spend the day doing essential things. Like thrift shopping. And watching Modern Family reruns.

·         9pm: I begin thinking about getting ready. I even discuss this with a few people over lengthy Facebook Chats.

·         10pm: Okay, fine, I don’t really need to see this Law and Order episode.

·         10:15pm: oh crap, I forgot to finish the final bits of the new Latin dress I was working on!  Maybe Mom and Dad won’t hear the sewing machine going…

·         11pm: Finished! Nearly had a heart attack every time the stairs creaked, though. Now just let me clean up so they don’t know that I still haven’t started packing…

·         11:10pm: I know I brought home the outlet converters. They’re here. Somewhere.

·         11:20pm: I brave the dark, creepy, bug infested outdoors to crawl into a dark, creepy crawlspace to go through all my stored belongings to find those damn converters. In the last box. At the bottom of the pile.

·         12am: staring at closet. Throwing random clothes on the floor.

·         12:30am: distracted. Ooh! Let me sort my scrap fabric collection!

·         1am: speaking of fabric, let’s watch dance videos online.

·         1:30am: ice creammmm

·         2am: anddd I’m leaving in an hour and a half. Time to start packing!

·         3am: Mom wakes up. I scurry about in a semblance of all night productivity. Army style packing = da bombdizzle.

·         4am: All packed! And out the door with the parents. Witty banter populates the early morning car ride to the airport. I did not indulge.

And good news is, I managed to fit 2 months worth of stuff in a backpack and carryon. See? With my travel luck, I can’t take any chances or my luggage will end up sliding down ski slopes in Nova Scotia.

5am. Flight leaves at 6:15am. We’re good to go. I get excited as we approach Terminal 2, as I have yet to see the new terminal at RDU. And then Mom reminds me that I’ve already flown out of it, not once, but twice.

After an emotional farewell, in which we all mock and harass each other to hide our true feelings, I depart.  I decided to check my carryon through to New York anyways, since I’ll be staying the night there. I figure it's a direct flight, so I don’t have to worry about it getting lost in the transfer. And United already ripped off my handle (the bastards) so not much more could happen to it.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

RDU à JFK

My flight gets delayed due to maintenance problems. I am filled with a mixture of emotion:

·         Mild annoyance: mostly because the benches have armrests, prohibiting me from laying down properly. I sleep anyways. Just to spite them.

·         Relief: my streak of never having a plane trip go completely smoothly is unbroken.

·         Confusion: how am I supposed to board in accordance to my seating number, if I wasn’t given a seating number?

·         Pain: my brain cells were slowly dying in response to the conversation that three teenage girls were having next to me (“ohmigawd, he said what?”)

JetBlue gives me coffee. And cookies. They are in my good graces.

Touchdown in New York City. I subtly inch over to the information services desk, “browsing the brochures” as I wait for my luggage. Over the top of a Jersey Boys pamphlet, I artfully deduce the best way to get to Manhattan from the airport by reading the large maps with my peripheral vision. Success! I managed to not attract the attention of the info assistant working there. This would have destroyed the illusion of indifferent competency that I strive so hard for.

Just my luck, though, and my suitcase doesn’t come to the baggage claim. Sigh. The one time I check in luggage. Resigned, I head to the Customer Service. On the way over, I glance at one of the passing baggage claims. And there is my bag! Rotating on the belt from… Portland.

The plan: I’ll be staying with my friend Nash for the evening, bro-ing it up in the big city. Then tomorrow, I head out to London and then to Pristina. But right now, Nash is at work so I go kill time in the city. Which is easy considering all the cool things to do! Museums, zoos, Central Park, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, shopping galore… The possibilities are endless. I decided to go explore a place makes New York a city unique and unlike any other –

Starbucks.

Hey, it was convenient! And served coffee. And had internet so I could make this lovely blog for you munchkins. It was supposed to be a brief stop. Instead, my butt developed a nice chair shape after 6 hours of not moving.

I blame the blog. Yes, most people consider the content to be the most important. And most people pick a preloaded template and have their blog up and running in 10 minutes. But I unfortunately overindulge my anal retentive tendencies. And funnily enough, I spent six hours on a template that I didn’t even end up using. But this one’s nice right?

The guy next to me noticed me editing the template nd started asking me web design questions. I had no idea what he was asking me, so I started dropping terms . HTML! Joomla! CSS! pH4! Pixels! If you know anything about coding, these terms make absolutely no sense in this context. And just my luck, he actually was a web designer. You know. For a living.

It’s rather unfortunate that all my knowledge of coding comes from calculator games and xkcd.com cartoons.

That evening Nash and I head to dinner at a swanky place. Meaning that the more you spend, the less you get on your plate. It’s a bit like a bell curve, with candy bars on the left and raw fish eyeballs on the right.

But the dinner was a lot of fun, and we had a whole list of things to celebrate.

·         Seeing each other again

·         Me leaving Ah-mur-ica

·         Nash’s first few weeks at the Wall Street Journal going well

·         Nash moving out of the ghetto

·         Nash’s bedbug wounds not festering

See that? That and constant fear for his life prompted his move from Brooklyn to Upper West Side.

We also wandered around for hours trying to find the bar where How I Met Your Mother. Which we did. It’s called McGees. And they gave us free shots of pear cider. We also stumbled across a movie being filmed in Times Square. No wonder movies have such big budgets these days – they have to pay a bunch of people to run around going ‘Don't look at the camera!’   Which of course prompts everyone within in earshot to look around wildly.

Side note: if you happen to be watching a random movie in the near future that features unrecognizable actors walking and talking in Times Square, look for a girl in a blue shirt! Oh yeah. Totally nailed the ‘don't look at the camera’ bit.

Oh and can’t forget the M&M store. Solely because it took me like five bajillion tries to get a shot of the giant revolving Elvis M&M. And this is what I end up with:

I felt like Sisyphus. Or a racecar driver – no matter whether you win or lose, you still end up in the same spot.

Okay this post is too long. I won’t detail the rest of our adventures like The Quest for a Milkshake or That In Which We Fail to Realize That The Subway Stops Running.

Putting things with capital letters makes everything sound more exciting.

And on that note: Good Night!

Hola, mis compadres!  So I’m a bit behind in setting up my blog this trip…seeing as I left home yesterday and I’m still trying to fix the damn font colors for the posts. So for the time being, consider it a game of ‘find the black headers on the dark grey background’!

But welcome! For those of you who are new to my blogs, here’s a quick history: for every major trip since last summer, I’ve tried to keep a daily post of the shenanigans and strangehappenin’s of the trip. Unfortunately, my success at blogposting is also indirectly proportional to the amount of sleep I am getting.  So never fear, if the blog suddenly stops halfway through for a few days, know that I am safe and mostly likely passed out somewhere, more than likely in a strange, twisted sleeping position.

Feel free, while you’re at it, to check out some of my past blogs!

·         The Republic of Turkey: turkishdelights2010.blogspot.com

o   In which Ellen learns that she will never ever not be white

·         Cozumel, Mexico: mexicanantics2010.blogspot.com

o   In which Ellen learns to fight off hawkers while forging rivers

·         West Coast: westernexcursions.blogspot.com

o   In which Ellen learns that beer-filled guitars bring out the best of America

·         India: indianglimpses2010.blogspot.com

o   In which Ellen gets lazy and stops blogging after Bangalore

·         Dubai and Abu Dhabi

o   In which Ellen doesn’t blog – and gets harassed

Hmmm you might notice a slight trend near the end. However, this time will be different and I will blog regularly! (And I’ll clean my room, and do my reading, and write my thank you letters….our future selves are so on the ball, aren’t they?). I can’t promise it’ll be everyday though. I can’t even remember to brush my hair every day, much less write an overly verbose blog post.

For those of you unfamiliar, PDPDP (the title of this post) is an acronym (and we definitely don’t have enough of those in our daily lives) for Post Departure Pre-Departure Post. This is where I give you the rundown of the trip to come until the guise that it hasn’t yet started.

SO. Basically, for the next two months, from June 16^th til August 17^th, I, Ellen Porter, will be in Europe! Yayyy. Now, I know what you’re thinking. (actually, I don’t. surprise...) “Ellen” you say, inwardly of course to avoid attracting stares, “are you becoming one of those angsty, aimless youngsters, uncertain of what you want in life, so you decide to go ‘take some time off’ and ‘backpack around Europe’ until you ‘figure life out’?” Your left eyebrow slightly raised. “Are you ashamed that all your friends have prestigious internships and/or are travelling to the slums of an undeveloped third world country to help starving Aids orphans feed their one-armed infant brothers?”

Possibly.

But luckily, I still have two more years in which to worry about careers (take that, my soul-selling intern friends), self-worth (aw, you put in all that work and those African orphans still have HIV and no parents…?), and a cliche trip of self-discovery (I’m saving that for after graduation).

Well now that I’ve alienated everyone, my trip. For the next six weeks, I will be participating in a Burch Field Research Seminar through UNC’s Honor Program (namedrop) that has the official title: ‘International Organizations and the Peace-Making Process’. I think. That’s what I’ve been telling everyone at least.

Where you ask? Well if the blog’s url didn’t give it away, my itinerary will look something like this:

·         First three weeks: the Balkans [specifically: Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Croatia]

o   (roughly around there at least - I’m iffy on the details)

·         Second three weeks: Vienna, Austria

o   Chya, watch out Europe. We’ll probably hit up Prague and Budapest, etc, during this time

·         Last 2.5 weeks: hmm I dunno. I just have to be back in London on the 17^th!

o   I’ll more than likely be spending about a week in Germany and then a week in Italy, and maybe say hi to my buddy, Spain.

In total, there will be 17 other UNC students accompanying me on this program. Led by the venerable Professor Bob Jenkins, we will be visiting with international organizations and learning about their role/effectiveness in post-conflict regions. Pretty cool, huh? I’m pretty pumped. AND I get PWAD* credit for it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwtOSOEL9rE&feature=related

The first three weeks will be the ‘field research’ part of the trip. And what better post-conflict place to go than the Balkans? (funny story: apparently, with regards to unlocking credit cards, USAA considers England a high risk country…but not Serbia). During this time, we’ll be out visiting orgs, etc etc.

The Vienna portion will be the ‘seminar’ part of the trip. That’s when we’ll be staying at the *ahem* the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna.  And strangely enough, it’s impossible to say that without a raised nose and the accompanying posh sneer. Go ahead. Try it. 5 bucks said you didn’t use your real voice.

Haha I’m sure it’s a great place. This is where we’ll be taking classes and writing our research paper. Yepp, we get to do our own research project! Ugh, it will be 15 pages (okay, just kidding, I’m actually super pumped to write the paper) so the blog posts will probably die the weekend before its due. *cough* slash the night before its due.

Okay, wow. That was more rambling than usual. In the past I would apologize for the length of the post, but I’ve decided to give in to my vices and accept my flaws. Besides, I may have people living vicariously through me, so I must give them as much detail as possible.

Well, signing out!