It turned out to be a long weekend of aircraft first and worsts. Things started out smoothly, but then at USAirways’ hub in Charlotte, the plane had an engine problem and the mechanics wouldn’t clear it to take off. Now, I’m all about not flying with engines that don’t work. Kudos for grounding the plane. But I would expect, and I’m sure many of my three readers would agree, that at an airlines major east coast hub, they would have a spare plane. Not USAirways. But! They did hook me up with a hotel room, some meal vouchers, and got me to my destination only 12 hours late or so. My mental voice was somewhat sarcastic as I typed that, but to be fair, that really isn’t too bad for not having a spare plane. They did they right thing.

So, 27 hours after I got to San Antonio, I left again. In Charlotte, they were asking for volunteers to give up the flight, which was overbooked, and I went ahead and volunteered, which netted me a $325 voucher. Another first. I had to fly through pittsburgh to get home. And the weather was the worst that I’ve ever flown through (tornado watch! yay!), so that was actually kind of like getting an amusement park ride to go with the airplane ticket. (Really, I enjoyed it. The plane didn’t fall out of the sky, and it was very much like a roller coaster. A wooden one that slams you around in your seat.)

So, I got my first airline provided hotel voucher, my first airline provided meal voucher, my first seat give up for a mostly free ticket, AND I got to visit 5 airports, 4 of them twice, for a total of NINE airport visits in 3 days! Woohoo! (Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Dallas, San Antonio, San Antonio, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Boston.)

This evening I went for another run on the vibrams. I ran for about 3 miles (a little walking, here and there). Lungs and legs felt FANTASTIC…I could’ve gone for at least twice as far on those. My feet got tired, which is why I walked, and I developed a blister on my left foot, so I’ll have to toughen my feet up some more. But it felt really good. I have a feeling this summer I may almost get into real shape. If I get my back waxed, I might even be willing to take my shirt off again! ;-) (OVERSHARE! YAY!)

Also, I keep thinking I should post up my thoughts about creating healthy competition in government programs to realize efficiency, performance, taxpayer satisfaction, and constant program improvement. This blog has been WAY to personal, and not nearly thoughtful enough for the last few months. When I bother to post, of course.

Got checked into the hotel just fine, and I was informed that they did indeed have extra space in a “ski week” class that was ramping up. Ski week is a sort of amazing thing that the Edelweiss Lodge does, where you can get equipment rental, lift tickets, and all-day instruction for a full week for what would normally be about the price of any one of those three things. It’s an amazing deal. I signed up to learn to snow board.

Then I went out to walk around Garmisch. Sorry no pictures, it was late and I kinda wanted to find someplace to hang out, like a pub, where the camera would be out of place. (The big one).

Anyway, I got downtown too early, so after walking about and grabbing dinner, and there being no cabs at the taxi stand, I started to walk back to the hotel.

It was (sort of) good that I did…I walked by a place advertising the awesomeness of their guinness, with an advertisement that literally DEMANDED that I patronize the establish. Not one to flout an authority when the authority is, after all, in the right, I stepped inside. An attractive barkeep was the only occupant, and when she greeted me in a charming british accent, I knew that I would have to have a couple of pints.

But the real kicker was when I noticed the beer selection. They had about 8 different brews from English breweries that we the sorts of beers I simply haven’t been able to have in germany. Stouts. Ales. Unique and flavorful.

I may have stayed a tad too late. Some say. Also.

The next morning, after a mere 4 hours of sleep or so, I hauled myself out of bed, got a shower and as much water as I could get my hands on, and got over to the sports lodge to start my lessons. After a brief (and confidence uninspiring) false start, where they had my bindings on backwards, things got going.

I had a lot of fun. I didn’t break anything. We’re in a really small group, just four of us, learning from an instructor who’s pretty good and very entertaining. The only downside is that the slope we’re on is pure ice, which makes it very difficult to learn to turn.

BUT! I’m doing well. I’m the only one of the four that figured out my turns without having the instructor do a literal hand-holding run down the slope, and the instructor has been profuse with her praise. And it is a blast, although I was dreaming all afternoon of actually getting on a slope with snow and trying that out. I almost think at this point that I won’t be able to handle it after the ice.

I made about twice as many runs as anyone else, and pushed myself to keep it coming as much as I could without endangering myself. The theory is the “10000 hour” rule…where repetition and only repetition can make you good at something. I’m hoping by the end of the week I’ll have enough chops to perhaps get a snowboard rented in Norway next week and some time in up there too.

I kept falling on my left side. My left shoulder and wrist are both sore, and my left ass-cheek took one really impressive blows, but (FSM continue the trend) I haven’t done any serious harm yet.

After getting back to the hotel, even though I’d been encouraged to go on a neat gorge tour by my classmates, I crashed. I showered off, got a fan blowing over my snow gear (I sweat enough so that it might as well NOT be water proof), and took a 3 hour nap.

More tomorrow!

So, earlier this week, after having gotten the rest of my house packed out and given away and cleaned and my deposit returned (yay!), I was getting ready to take a trip to Paris to visit my once and future roommate, Alex.

The day prior to going, having just picked up my deposit and had coffee with my landlady, I was walking to my favorite mexican restaurant for a celebratory lunch and margarita, and going through what I was going to need to bring and planning for the trip, etc.

“Hmm..definitely taking the train, but should I buy the ticket now or after lunch? Maybe I could just get it back at the house? No, Anthony’s printer isn’t working…better to get it after lunch. Lessee…gonna need the computer, my passport…where is my passport? Did I put it in my documents? Oh, shit, I think I filed it, thinking I’d pull it back out for travel later….I didn’t go back through the filing cabinet! Oh shit oh shit oh shit…”

So, after a slightly abbreviated lunch, I went back to Anthony’s and searched. I don’t have a lot of stuff with me. The search didn’t take a long time. I didn’t have my passport.

I spent the rest of the afternoon getting on the State Department’s website and figuring out how to get a fresh passport. It was pretty straight forward. After I set myself up a passport appointment, I called them on their “emergency line”, when I was told to get back on the website and request an emergency passport appointment. So I did.

I felt a bit weird, asking for an emergency appointment. This wasn’t a true EMERGENCY, per se, just a expedited passport. I wrestled briefly with my conscious, and decided to go with the whole truth. I wrote that I had packed my passport, that I was leaving germany for good in 17 days or so, that I had plane tickets and travel plans in less then a week, and that if they could help me out it would be amazing. I went to sleep, beginning to make plans to visit Berlin instead of Norway.

The next morning, I was awoken by a phone call from the consulate. They told me to go on base, see the local consulate agent there, and get myself an emergency appointment. So I did. Technically, I’m not supposed to be able to use the on-base people because I’m not active duty, and I again, told them straight up that I knew that, apologised for the inconvenience, and thanked them profusely and sincerely for helping me out. The morning after THAT, I got on a train at 0545, went to frankfurt, and got an emergency passport.

Throughout the whole thing, the state department staff were friendly and helpful. The whole thing was a generally good experience, insofar as losing an important document, skipping your trip to Paris, and going through the worry about whether you’ll be able to make your plane back to the states can be a pleasant experience. :-) Kudos, though, and many, many thanks to the great people working with the State Department!

Regina’s Friends’s Wedding

Cyprus Trip

Also, I finally figured how to use the in house gallery.