Life, The Universe & Everything

[Edit: This must be about the 4th time I’ve come back to this post, I keep getting distracted and never getting round to finishing it]

So Wednesday starts. IC hasn’t officially begun – Wednesday is the day that all the students arrive, but IO staff, ADs and BoT members mostly arrive on Tuesday, with some coming later when they’re able. That means that we tend to use Wednesday for activities for those people who are there. So from 9 – 3 we had AD sessions. It was good to share with others, thinking about our affiliates and IO and how we can continue to support and grow the organisation. We also had sessions on DEIB and Project Management both of which were interesting.

After that I went for a quick trip down to the bottleshop to buy a couple of bottles of wine for myself and others. The story of that wine will come up later… Once I got back I went to Target with a couple of other ADs to get a few things we needed. Things that you forget about because you have them at home and then when you get to uni accommodation you remember that nothing is provided! As part of the conference we get a pillow two sheets (both unfitted ☹️) a blanket and two towels. That’s all – nothing else. So a few of this things we picked up included a bath mat, a tea towel, sponges and detergent and wine glasses.

When we got back we swung by Cyd & Brenda’s (former AD/AD) who always do a huge amount of cooking and put on an amazing spread for all the staff staying in north housing. We then had a little bit of time before the appreciation dinner. I headed down early to go to the alumni get together. I met some new people and knew a few others from last years, it was fun to hang out. We then headed downstair to the appreciation dinner. Both the food and the wine was good, although the wine wasn’t cheap at $US10/glass.

Probably the coolest thing at the dinner though was one of the people I met. There was a lady called Jane who was there with a few others from Kentucky. One of those ladies is from Irvine. She knows the Smiths, who I stayed with when I competed in IC back in 2006. How amazing and how cool is that! It was very exciting. After dinner we headed back and I decided to go to bed pretty early – I knew Thursday would be a long day once evaluation begun. And that’s where we’ll pick up tomorrow.

So I’m back again – only two days later, we’ll see how long the regular updates last! I have a bit of time to kill before evaluation starts so I thought I’d bring the blog up to date. The flights were relatively uneventful, though there is more turbulence across the US than we usually have in Australia.

I had an exit row from LA to Chicago but the leg room wasn’t too bad on the shorter leg from Chicago to Hartford. There’s no food on these shorter AA flights, so I took advantage of the Admirals Club at Chicago too so I could grab a bite to eat. I arrived in Hartford pretty much on schedule. My luggage didn’t take long and then I headed off to Hertz, exchanging a few messages with the people I was bring to campus with me.

There was a long wait and Hertz, but we eventually got it sorted out. We go to choose the car from a few options, but in the end we had to go with the van, because it didn’t look like we would fit all our luggage in anything smaller. If I remember I’ll take a photo of it to put in a later post.

The drive to campus was relatively uneventful. Ir remembered that the right was the right side of the road! There were quite a few cars around and it’s really pretty easy to remember what you’re supposed to do when you’re following others. We arrived about a bit later but grabbed a golf cart and headed over to the welcome dinner, where I caught up with some familiar faces from last year. We didn’t stay too late as I was pretty tired and others were ready to leave too.

When I got back to my room I ummhed and aahed between going to Walmart and going to bed. I decided to head to Walmart even though I was tired, so I could get some supplies. Came back, made my bed and had a good sleep. This post is long so I’ll end it there, but there’s a photo of my dorm room below. It’s very standard American, a single room when you often see doubles in TV shows but it does the job.

I’ve kind of impressed and surprised myself that I’m only two days in and I’m already updating the blog. It’s probably because I’m here at the airport at this unearthly hour. Note to self: when booking flights in the future remember you have to get to the airport before the departure time!

Ok, let me bring you up to speed from my last post. Everytime I fly business I remember how much I like it and wish I could travel that way all the time, but I don’t know how people afford it. I’ve only been on one business class that was paid for in cash rather than using points, and I wasn’t the one who paid the bill – it was a gift. Anyway – I digress.

We landed in Brisbane with no issues and the terminal transfer was relatively painless. I got through security and immigration surprising quickly. I found my gate (a 7 minute walk from coming through security) and then trekked back to the Qantas Business Lounge. (As an aside, at this point in my trip – Qantas Cub = well worth it). The business lounge was nice, without being spectacular. A nice glass of Pinot Noir, along with cheese & some pasta salad kept me happy. When the boarding call came I headed back to the gate and wished for Gold so I would have priority boarding. The US security pre-clearance people at the gate so I answered the questions. I do love that innovation, it makes entering the US so easy!

The flight was your typical long haul. The exit row was nice, so I could stretch out, and the food was decent. This time I remembered my sleeping pills and they got me off to sleep, but I didn’t sleep too well. I got about two hours to start and then another two blocks of about an hour each. More would have been nice but it worked out OK for the time change. We landed about half and hour ahead of schedule. The line at immigration was mercifully short and two questions later I was heading to baggage claim. Thanks to the business priority sticker on my bag (from PER – BNE) my bag was already on the carousel by the time I got there. It took a bit to figure out how the ride sharing works now at LAX, but I managed to ge to LAXit and order an Uber. On my way I read a few more review of the motel I was staying at and I was starting to regret my choice. The reviews weren’t great and it looked a bit seedy. I was even looking at alternative hotels that I might move to.

As it turned out, my fears were unfounded. It was basic, but clean and everything I needed. (Photos at the bottom of this post) I arrived and pretty much went straight to sleep. I awoke a few times and did a couple of things, including shower but I essentially slept til about 6am. I was going to get food, but having had breakfast (at an early dinner time) on the flight, I wasn’t too hungry. I was planning to sleep past 6am but I was woken by my housemate who had locked himself out of the house and needed help finding the spare key. I thought about going back to sleep, but decided it might work better for my required early night to stay up.

After getting out of bed, I did a search for breakfast / coffee. I found a place called the Coffee Bean & the Tea Leaf about a 20 minute walk away. I decided to embrace the US and had a flavoured latte (gasp). It was pretty good, I can’t remember exactly but it had macadamia and was hot. I also had a bagel with cream cheese! This cafe was next to a target, so I headed in there and found the luggage tags I was after. It still seems so strange that in addition to everything our targets have, over here they also have something akin ing to a small Coles, a bottleshop and a pharmacy all in the one Target! I then headed back to my accommodation. The initial plan had been to go to Venice Beach, or at least see the sights but it was cloudy, grey and there were some showers around, so that didn’t seem a great idea. In the end I stayed at the motel and watched the WWDC keynote!

Following that I watched some Masterchef and ordered Chick-fil-a for lunch (achievement unlocked!) It was good, but not sure it was quite as amazing as it had been built up to be. I then had an unintentional nap – timezones remember! After I woke, I watched a bit more masterchef and order Indian for dinner – it was good. Then I slept a bit more (notice a pattern). One of the things I had done earlier was to book a car to take me to the airport, against my better judgement I agreed with the 3.30am time to give me plenty of time. Previous experiences in US airports have shown me they can be busy.

At 2.50am I got a phone call from my driver saying he had arrived!?! So I rushed to get my stuff together and we left about about 3.10. As it turned out the airport was basically dead. In fact after bag drop I had to wait 10 minutes for security to actually open. I was through at at my gate by 4am for a 6.10am flight. Not super happy.

At 4.30am the American Airlines Admirals Club (lounge) opened and thanks to my Qantas Club membership I get access if I’m flying on QF or AA (I’m the latter). Remember how I mentioned Qantas Club was worth it! And that’s where I am now, in the Admirals Club, comfy chair, free internet. I’ve also had decent coffee, cereal a muffin and juice so I’m much happier. I’ll probably be boarding my flight to Hartford, via Chicago in about 20 minutes.

Sorry this was really long – I had time to kill. That’s all for now. I’ll try and do some posts during IC, but we’ll see how time goes.