Welcome to Cambridge

I'm currently on a bus chartered to take most of the CME students from Heathrow Airport in London to Cambridge. The trip is supposed to be about an hour, and Pak's asleep, but I haven't been able to sleep for the past seven hours, so I see no reason why I should be able to do so now. Therefore, this is as good a time as any for me to begin a blog post.

I'm working off of a new laptop that I had to buy in a hurry since the laptop I intended to bring died a few days before I was due to leave. It passed my approval test (it works) and Pak only has minor qualms with it. As I said, though, it hasn't died on me, so I'm happy with it so far.

Traveling is always a pain, and to say that this flight went exceptionally well is only to say that it didn't feel like forever. That being said, there were some problems getting my cello on the flight. I had to buy an extra seat for it, and the agents at check-in were a little skeptical. After that minor incident, having the cello became a boon, though. I got a whole row to myself and my cello, and all the stewardesses were exceedingly nice to me. They did require an “engineer” to tie my cello to its seat. Not really sure why they required an engineer to do this, but that's what they kept saying, and sure enough he came. Eventually. And then he fiddled for a bit while I stood in the aisle looking awkward. And then the pilot announced that we were ready for takeoff and they were just clearing up an issue in the cabin. And everyone looked at me. But on the whole, traveling with so much space was worth the hassle.

Of the three movies I wanted to see on the in-flight entertainment system (“Prince Caspian,” “Zohan,” and “Speed Racer”), I selected what I imagine was the worst of them. I agree completely with BJP's opinion of “Speed Racer.” I can only hope that “Spemer Racer” turned out to be a better movie. The other two didn't get tremendously good ratings, but it's hard to conceive of them being any worse than a movie about a family with the last name of “Racer” and the guts to call their middle child “Speed.”

Before we landed we did what I dubbed the “Heathrow tailspin.” This is a result of the limited space on their runway and amounted to (in my case) five or six circles/figure-eights around south London slowly descending and eventually landing us in the middle of an airfield where they put us in buses and shipped us to the nearest terminal. Everything would have been just fine arriving at the terminal had I not had a backpack, a cello, a leather bag, and a suitcase. It didn't help that I had go to the terminal where all the other CME students had landed.

Which brings me to the present moment: sitting on a bus to Cambridge on the left side of the highway. The driver's a dick. After lugging my cello around and buying a seat for it on both the Fung Wah and the flight, it is now in the bottom of this bus because it's “too bulky.” Maybe there just wasn't enough space on this fifty person bus that's holding twenty of us. I hope he hates his job.

I'm not actually that spiteful. I'm just tired. Hopefully we'll get some pictures up soon. And maybe a map or two to help you guys figure out what we're talking about.

By the way this post was written on October 1^st at 10.30, UK time. That's 5.30 in the morning for you guys. It may be a while before I actually have internet access can post this, though.