The Day Is Over - Phew

I'm EXHAUSTED!

Last night I didn't leave Minnesota until late so I didn't get home until 4 a.m. this morning. I immediately fell into bed and was OUT. Thank God I did hear my alarm go off at 6:45 so I could get up, jump in the shower, pack and be out the door and on the way to the airport by 7:30 a.m. in order to get on my 9:47 a.m. flight.

Because I booked my ticket later, I ended up getting a cheaper flight by flying through Denver. Its always so weird to come into Denver as its completely flat and desolate but then you look around and see the mountains. We we came in this morning, there was this other plane that was coming in neck and neck with us and they ended up landing in sync with us on a parallel runway. It was pretty cool.

My flight in Denver connected me with a flight to San Francisco.

Flying into San Fran is quite an adventure. There are a lot of airports whose runways are kind of "in" the water.... New York Lagurdia, Norfolk VA -- but this one is so crazy. The runway is in the water, but you completely have to fly OVER the water before you can aim at the piece of land with the runway. You're coming in and looking out the window and you're about 50 feet above the water and progressively going lower. Today, there was quite a bit of wind and weather so the way the plane was shaking, you kept on wondering if you were just going straight in the drink.

Then, once you get into the airport, its a whacked up place. I tend to fly through San Fran a lot, connecting to other places. Its so confusing finding where you're supposed to go. I went through SF to get to Tokyo and it took me about 30 minutes to actually find the international terminal! Today, I've never had to look for hotel shuttles before so I spent another 30 minute adventure roaming around looking where I was supposed to go. There were all these signs for hotel shuttle with arrows, but you'd follow the arrow and then all of a sudden you'd look back and see it pointing somewhere else. Then you'd follow that and, blam, you had to circle back and track it another way.

Then - I stood and waited for 30 minutes for a shuttle that was supposed to come every 20 minutes. Then once we got on the shuttle, it took another 30 minutes to get to the hotel as we had to stop at like 3 other hotels and every hotel, the driver would go in and chat with the front desk people.

Oh - here's a laugh. The west coast is SO international feeling. There is a lot of asian influence, like we've got hispanic influence around us, everyone around the west coast, it seems, is asian. I find this true in CA and then up in Seattle. Anyways, our bus driver is Asian, but I think he was like Chinese as he was playing this Chinese restaurant music in the hotel shuttle (30 minutes of that asian stringed instrument and some Chinese woman singing "aaa fo fee shu pork moo goo eggroll" or whatever she was saying, is enough to make you want to rip your hair out! So, we stop at this one terminal and out little Asian bus driver gets out and says "Lakinta, Em-boosee an Cour-yahd" and all these people come up to him looking for their hotel shuttle (no of which was Lakinta, Em-boosee or Cour-yahd). Sitting listening to them, I had to turn my face to the window and stiffle my laughter. One little Indian woman was asking for "LAPLAMSDINRINE" or something like that, a Japanese man was asking for "Shotonemo" or something, and a Eastern European woman was pointing at the shuttle bus and saying something about stuffed cabbage? Then, the little Asian bus driver was trying to figure out what each person was trying to say, but then they couldn't understand him because of his accent, but then he couldn't understand them because of their accents. And it went on and on and added to the pleasure of the whole experience.

Oh well - at least, I walked out the airport door to NO SNOW and the SUN and weather that wasn't really hot or warm, but wasn't cold!

I'm staying in Silicone Valley by the water - you look out the hotel one way and this is the view....

This was the view on the other side. Such a contrast!I took a walk around the harbor trail and was kicking myself that I didn't pack my running shoes as I didn't think I'd have a chance to use them. I walked long enough to get my little heart rate up though and then I headed back to the hotel to call it an "early" night...

"Pants In A Bush" is the title of this picture

You can see the plane coming in to land - its that little white fleck over the water