Day 10: Sunday November 14, 2004

The two alarms I've set wake me up at 5:30am. I wish I could sleep longer, but my flight leaves at 8am from La Guardia, so I take a big sigh and force myself out of bed. I put on my clothes - the same pink pants and striped jersey that I had bought from the Gap, and was wearing yesterday, and my pink overcoat. Yes, another day of wearing all pink.

I head downstairs and check out of the hotel. The front desk clerk comments that I have not made even one phone call (why should I, when I have my mobile phone with me?). "How am I to make a living off you?" he asks. "I must rob and steal!" I leave the hotel and the doorman hails a cab for me. It's such a great city that you have no problem getting a cab at 6am on a Sunday morning.

My cab ride to La Guardia is smooth sailing. The only good thing about traveling at such an early hour is that traffic is on your side. As we cross the bridge I ask the driver about the toll - it's $4 toll each way. I arrive at the airport and do curbside check-in. Even though I've tried my best to distribute the weight evenly between my 2 pieces of luggage, my suitcase is 5 lbs over the weight limit of 50 pounds. "I'll take care of you, if you take care of me" says the skycap, so I give him a big tip and he lets my bag through without charging me the extra fee. This is the way it works.

My flight home has a layover in Minneapolis. Both flights are pretty close to being sold out, and fortunately without incident this time, which I'm extremely grateful for. I notice on the first flight, they are selling breakfast for $5, which I find a little weird, as I don't think I've ever been on a flight where they sell meals. I don't discover how the food is as I don't buy it. On the second flight, they serve us the same old crappy Northwest lunch with the worst sandwich ever, Fritos, an apple and water. I take the apple and water and pass on everything else. During the layover I charge up my laptop at Minneapolis airport, as my PC's battery life sucks and doesn't last anywhere near as long as Rick's iBook. Come to think of it, the whole PC thing sucks, and I can hardly wait for Apple to come out with their new G5 Powerbooks (please say it will be at MacWorld in January, Steve Jobs!), so that I can finally get my Apple laptop and be done with using the PC thing.

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