Slack-off: Day 1

My hair does not like New York. It's a curly-whirly mess, despite the active straightening that I force it to adhere to before leaving the house. I'm going to try to tame it again this morning, but I'm not hopeful. Therefore, you will not see many pictures of me; my hair is not worthy of documentation.

I am, however, having all kinds of funtimes.

Things did not start off so great. I barely slept the night before my flight, due to a combination of slight disorganisation and excitement/worry about what might go wrong. After 2 hours sleep, I awoke and readied myself and my stuff. I decided the nice thing to do for my housesitter would be to take out the trash, but having given her the key that leads to my trash area, I had to prop open the door so I could get back into my apartment easily. Unfortunately the door slammed shut, forcing me to my patio entrance. My spare keys really suck, and I wiggled the stupid thing for 10 minutes, trying to convince the lock to open. I was getting worried: my ride was supposed to arrive in 10 minutes and I still had a couple things to do. Finally, the key turned.

The test of my nerves was not over. My ride accidentally turned off the sound of his alarm and my repeated attempts to inquire to his whereabouts were left unanswered. After 20 minutes I called a taxi, waited another 10, got to the airport and the gate with about 10 minutes to spare. One weird thing was I saw the parents of a kid I went to school with. I said, "You're the Hamiltons. I'm blah blah, I went to school with David." They exclaimed, "Oh, of course! Hello! Are you going to Italy, too?"

The rest of the flight and connection was mostly uneventful.

I made it to my friend's house in Astoria before he got home from work, so sat on the front stoop and checked the neighbourhood. Everything is brick and storied, like a working class neighbourhood almost anywhere. After settling in, we headed out for dinner at a Greek restaurant (apparently I can't be in Astoria without eating Greek, as there is some sort of bylaw or rule that declares the necessity; perhaps it is the slogan for the area) and absorbed the surrounding conversations while we gorged on calimari, kebabs and lemon potatoes. They bring a bowl of custardy baklava at the end of the meal and, despite being stuffed full, we both inhaled the stuff. By the time we got back to Justin's I was dead beat. Managed to fall asleep almost instantly.

Traveling is hard.