This has not been my week...
Jan. 6th, 2008 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elwen...hopefully the trend does not continue so that it is not my year either. (Especially since it is my year, i.e. the year of the rat.)
So as I mentioned last time, strong winds conspired to screw up the second half of our vacation. They never did let up, and I never did get to go snorkeling behind hotel. My dad did Saturday morning, when the waves were at least somewhat calmer, but by then I had a cold and didn't particularly relish the thought of putting on a still-wet swimsuit, plunging into cold water, then emerging into cold and windy air. But that's getting a little ahead, I suppose.
Since we had nothing to do on Thursday, we took a taxi downtown and window-shopped. We also found a drugstore and bought me Dramamine, which made the Friday ferry rides bearable. Unfortunately, our tour-booking guy at the hotel screwed up our Friday trip, so that no one met us at the pier. We figured it was better to take the ferry and try to find someone on the mainland than wait an hour for the next one, so we did so. No one met us on the mainland either. We spent the next 2 hours wrestling with public phones and trying to get the tour-booking guy, since his receipt conveniently did not provide the phone number for the actual tour company. Finally, we got him and he asked someone to come out and meet us. It turns out they never got our reservation at all. We went back and yelled at the tour-booking guy, who pleaded "supply-side problems" -- I don't buy it, and even if it was true, he could have warned us before we went sailing off to the mainland. My dad got a partial refund, but I'm still going to file a complaint with the tourism bureau.
Once we got to the park itself, it was pretty fun. The underground river itself was kind of anticlimactic, and when we came out it was really windy and cold, and it took us a few minutes to get our stuff and wrap ourselves in towels, which is how I got sick, I'm pretty sure. But the evening show was so cool. I wish I'd taken more time before the show started to wander around and look at the people at the entrance. Their costumes were so elaborate.
So then on Saturday morning we left for home. The first part was just your usual airport delays and crap -- we were unpleasantly surprised when they decided to confiscate our water bottles just before boarding rather than at the security checkpoint (WTF?), but whatever. But when we got to Chicago, we had a 3 hour layover that turned into 6. This was actually better than my previous experience in Chicago, which involved multiple gate changes and truly magnificent operation of Murphy's Law. But it was still kind of miserable, and resulted in us not getting home until 4am.
And guess what was waiting for us there? Apparently some huge storm hit the Bay Area on Friday, and we still don't have power. And because our area "only" has 44 households or something, we are lowest priority, so we won't get power back until tomorrow morning earliest and possibly not until Wednesday. Last night all we could do was drop our luggage in the entryway, grope our ways to our beds, and curl up fully dressed under two layers of blankets, and still be cold.
My sister and I are taking refuge in the library right now, and starting tomorrow I guess I will be spending a lot of time in the law school library, but I really would have preferred to be writing my paper on my desktop. *sigh*
So as I mentioned last time, strong winds conspired to screw up the second half of our vacation. They never did let up, and I never did get to go snorkeling behind hotel. My dad did Saturday morning, when the waves were at least somewhat calmer, but by then I had a cold and didn't particularly relish the thought of putting on a still-wet swimsuit, plunging into cold water, then emerging into cold and windy air. But that's getting a little ahead, I suppose.
Since we had nothing to do on Thursday, we took a taxi downtown and window-shopped. We also found a drugstore and bought me Dramamine, which made the Friday ferry rides bearable. Unfortunately, our tour-booking guy at the hotel screwed up our Friday trip, so that no one met us at the pier. We figured it was better to take the ferry and try to find someone on the mainland than wait an hour for the next one, so we did so. No one met us on the mainland either. We spent the next 2 hours wrestling with public phones and trying to get the tour-booking guy, since his receipt conveniently did not provide the phone number for the actual tour company. Finally, we got him and he asked someone to come out and meet us. It turns out they never got our reservation at all. We went back and yelled at the tour-booking guy, who pleaded "supply-side problems" -- I don't buy it, and even if it was true, he could have warned us before we went sailing off to the mainland. My dad got a partial refund, but I'm still going to file a complaint with the tourism bureau.
Once we got to the park itself, it was pretty fun. The underground river itself was kind of anticlimactic, and when we came out it was really windy and cold, and it took us a few minutes to get our stuff and wrap ourselves in towels, which is how I got sick, I'm pretty sure. But the evening show was so cool. I wish I'd taken more time before the show started to wander around and look at the people at the entrance. Their costumes were so elaborate.
So then on Saturday morning we left for home. The first part was just your usual airport delays and crap -- we were unpleasantly surprised when they decided to confiscate our water bottles just before boarding rather than at the security checkpoint (WTF?), but whatever. But when we got to Chicago, we had a 3 hour layover that turned into 6. This was actually better than my previous experience in Chicago, which involved multiple gate changes and truly magnificent operation of Murphy's Law. But it was still kind of miserable, and resulted in us not getting home until 4am.
And guess what was waiting for us there? Apparently some huge storm hit the Bay Area on Friday, and we still don't have power. And because our area "only" has 44 households or something, we are lowest priority, so we won't get power back until tomorrow morning earliest and possibly not until Wednesday. Last night all we could do was drop our luggage in the entryway, grope our ways to our beds, and curl up fully dressed under two layers of blankets, and still be cold.
My sister and I are taking refuge in the library right now, and starting tomorrow I guess I will be spending a lot of time in the law school library, but I really would have preferred to be writing my paper on my desktop. *sigh*
no subject
Date: 2008-01-07 11:29 am (UTC)And I hope you get well soon, too. Being sick in time for classes is no fun.