I wonder if I have "American" stamped on my forehead. Even without flashing my little blue American passport, people still want to speak English to me. I'm in France, speak French, dammit!
Landed in Paris to the most dreary of weather. 5 degrees celsius AND drizzling. Glimpses of a sun were caught prior to descending below clouds. And now just doom and gloom. I forgot to take my long-sleeve shirt out of my suitcase prior to check-in, so I feel positively ridiculous, not to mention cold, wearing nothing but hammer pants, a tank top and flip-flops. Clearly, I didn't think this through quite right. Typical.
I'm enjoying a cappuccino and the flakiest of chocolate croissants. The croissant cost 4 times what a croissant cost at the French Bakery on Phi Phi's Main Street. Actually, my breakfast just cost the equivalent of 2 meals on Phi Phi and I'm going to double that as I'm about to go for another round. I need to just not convert. But surely even in France, $10 (or 6 Euros) can't possibly be reasonable for a cup of coffee and a danish! But good grief, I could eat 15 of these croissants!
I'm amazed that so far everything has gone very smoothly. When planning the flights, my dad suggested that we book an earlier flight out of Phuket in the interest of giving more leeway in Bangkok in case the flight was delayed. Hindsight, I should have known that was a bad idea. The ferry took 2 hours to cross instead on 1 1/2 - I don't know why it's been that way lately. The only moment of impatience I had was at Rassada Pier waiting for Chao Koh's Pichamon ferry to unload the contents of its guts before gathering all those going to the airport onto a minibus. I did make sure to ask the driver before we departed if we were going direct to the airport or driving all around Phuket first. I figured I could still salvage the situation and catch a taxi. But, for ye of little faith, myself included, I made it to the airport exactly one hour before my flight was due to leave.
Bangkok was boring. I had 3 hours to wait and not much to do. The choice of restaurants included one that served Shark Fin soup that made me want to burn the place down - I get so upset, it's physical - I could seriously see myself setting fire to a place for those kinds of reasons. I ended up ordering some fries at Burger King and feeling like a sell-out whore while I was eating them and like crap afterwards with all that grease sitting on my belly. But I was vehemently against spending 150 baht on a pad thai - on the island, I get pad thai for like 50 baht. I hate airport food - the choice is always going to be the lesser of a couple of evils.
After my computer crapped out yet again because it's overheating, I did buy myself a little fan tray at duty free. It was probably a little more expensive than if I'd just gone to the basement of Big C, but it works fabulous!
With all of you as my witnesses I take the following vow: I am NEVER EVER flying an American airline again unless I have positively no other choice (i.e., traveling in the U.S.). Air France rocked! At first I was a little dismayed that it wasn't a big old Boeing 747 type plane, but the service was impeccable and everything was FREE! My seat was a front aisle seat with no one next to me, so unfortunately I couldn't put the armrest up, but I was still able to sleep most of the way. Though I should have listened to myself at the airport and bought some Valium or Atavan from the Boots to konk me out completely. At any rate, they didn't find it necessary to wake me up every time they brought food or drink around like the China Airlines gals on the way to Taipei.
I honestly can't believe that it's May 12 and people are bundled up like it's the middle of winter. I left Phi Phi, it was so hot my fore-arms were sweating just walking down the street. Not going to say any more about the heat - I know you're all tired of reading about it.
Chris came back from his second Similans trip on Saturday and I took Sunday and Monday off work so he and I could go fun diving together before I left for vacation and he leaves Phi Phi for good. It was fantastic to dive together again, without following or leading. We spent ages just puttering about and photographing things at our own leisurely pace. It's a whole different diving experience. I also wanted to spend a bit of proper time with him and not have our goodbyes be hurried, "okay it was nice to see you" kinda goodbyes. Who knows when next our paths will cross. Though, he's off to Sipadan and I've already threatened to go visit him before long.
Fatty had babies. Well, I guess technically he didn't have babies, but he sure as hell knocked up some little tramp who had Fatty offspring. I know they're Fatty's because clearly those little nuts did not fall too far from the tree. They totally have Fatty personality. There's 5 of them. 2 boys, 3 girls. They're probably about 2 to 3 months old by now and growing daily. My two favorites are the healthiest and the runt. I think I've just about named all of them at this point: Scout, Boo Radley, Junior, Helmethead and NoName - just by virtue of the fact that I kept calling the last one no name because I hadn't named it, it's name became No Name. I'm going to be gone for about 3 weeks by the time I've had my holiday and travelled to and from. This 3 week period is going to tell me one of two things about my boyfriend. Either he's a mean old human or he's a bigger sucker than I am. We used to feed 3 adult cats. Now we're feeding 3 adult cats and 5 kittens, so at this rate, we'll soon enough be feeding 8 adult cats. If when I return to Phi Phi, we're back to feeding only 3 adult cats, then I'll know that my boyfriend is a mean old human with nothing but evil in his heart. If when I come back we're feeding 8 cats, then I'll know that my boyfriend is at least as big a sucker as I am if not bigger. There is also the very distinct possibility that the real owners of all these kittens actually plan to turn them into 5 baht kittens and sell them. I don't need to own cats, but boy would I love to keep Scout and Boo Radley. Boo Radley has some respiratory problem and honestly at the rate he's going, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't make it.
Well, I made it to Malaga, Spain in fairly good form. The most exciting part of my trip came right at the end. When I went to baggage claim, the board had posted carousel number 39 for my flight's bags. So I went and waited at carousel 39 and watched bags turn and turn and turn. Then the carousel stopped. And my bag hadn't come out. I overheard somebody say that bags were also coming out on carousel 40. So I turned around and indeed, the little monitor for carousel 40 informed me that these were bags that had originated in non-EU countries. Super. I watched bags go around that carousel until it stopped and my bag hadn't come out. I stood in line at the Air Europa counter and dialogued with a man in Espanol to be told that I needed to go to carousel 31. Okay. So off I trotted to carousel 31 which was enclosed in a "special" area. And there was my little suitcase waiting for me on a stopped carousel. Hurrah, we were reunited at long-last. Eager to go find my parents, I grabbed my suitcase and marched towards the exit to be stopped abruptly by a stocky, rotund bearded security guard who barked at me in Espanol about something to declare. No, no tengo. Again with the something to declare. No. Asked me where I came from. Tailandia. Asked me again if I had something to declare. No. And you came from Thailand. Yes. And you have nothing to declare? No. That's when he called his buddy over. Same thing with his buddy, who limited it to one interrogation then told me to put my suitcase on the xray machine. Then we examined the bones of my suitcase together as he pointed and asked me "what's that." I guessed, "hard drive???" Then he asked me for all the contents of my suitcase. Clothes, camera, hard drive, toiletries and yoga mat. I think it was the yoga mat that stopped the interrogation. Not smuggling drugs, not smuggling weapons, dude, I come in Peace!
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