I enjoyed very much my “Last Meal That Won’t Burn Your Mouth for Days” with mom and dad at a small diner near DIA (called “Moonlight”, I think). A diner where the staff are all a bit larger than average is a good sign! We won the heart and mind of our waiter when mom recalled the name of Marisa Tomei as the car-savvy heroine in that movie where Ralph Macchio and his pal are jailed somewhere in the south for murder… Herman Munster was the judge, Joe Pesci was the lawyer…little help here…anyway.
Denver – LA, no problems. I sat next to a nice guy who was on his way to Tonga, then Australia, then New Zealand, taking his first international trip. We agreed we both had a pretty long day ahead! We arrived in LA on time. At LAX, it was a little difficult to find a departure board that wasn’t all United all the time. It turns out, you have to exit security, exit the building, and walk a couple blocks to another building to actually not fly United. Ahh, the LAX international terminal. It’s super inviting. The international terminal is where they don’t have any shops or food, and where they have about six chairs for every gate. You would think that for all the enthusiasm in the US for getting foreign people out, the international terminal would be a more pleasant place. If I was foreign I would let my visa lapse just to not go there. I camped on the hard tile floor with about ten thousand other people, mourned the tragic and brutal beating of a plum in a sack lunch my mom packed for me (plums, it would seem, are not tremendously durable) ate a couple yummy sandwiches (peanut butter, jelly, and plum juice – thanks mom!!), and watched as all the other flights departed on time. Mine to Bangkok was delayed, and my window to see Krystle and her roommate P’Yu at the airport in Bangkok the next morning dwindled and then disappeared: She had to leave at 8AM in order to catch the van as it departed for an MTW staff Pray and Plan retreat. I hoped somehow we’d “make up time” in the air, but when I checked the plane it was not, in fact, a Concorde. Instead of landing at 6:40 AM, it was scheduled for 8:20 or so, Bangkok time. Drag. The delay was caused by some lavatory vandalism on the plane from the previous flight (I heard later it made the news?), and everyone on board had to be questioned and frisked for Sharpie pens. It appeared that I would be hauling P’Yu’s new laptop (I was a courier) up to Mae Sot for a few weeks which would disappoint her a lot. P’Yu, for the record, is well aware of the English meaning of her name and goes by “Stinky” among close friends now and then =).
The flight itself was great, actually, in a Really Long Flight sort of way: seat-wise, one other guy and I had the four middle seats to ourselves so I could stretch out into the neighboring seat and got some good sleep. Ok, decent sleep. Ok, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t awake the whole time. Thai Air decorates in a pretty loud purple and pink scheme, but I can’t really blame it on that. I watched a movie on my personal little screen in front of me (Date Night – love both Fey and Carrell but the movie left me wanting a little more) and read from a well-loved (and puppy-chewed) copy of Greg Mortenson’s Stones Into Schools (thanks Dawn!). Towards the end of the flight, I spooled up some worship music on the Ipod and nearly killed the battery on “Grace Like Rain” by Plumbline. Love that song, and that’s one of the inspirations for the blog name. The food on the plane was good, too, so that when I landed I wasn’t very hungry and wasn’t very tired. I did however, smell bad. Nice.
At about two hours late and doubting Krystle and P’Yu could be there, should I bypass my transfer gate to Chiang Mai and exit the secured area into the public area of the airport? Of course not! I was pretty bummed about how late I was, but remembering conversations about ‘Thai time’ I figured there was still a pretty slim chance they could be hanging around a while longer. Plus, I had a laptop to deliver so P’Yu would want to stay as late as possible! I also had another friend to meet: Ake, one of Graham’s friends that I’d met a few times back in the states is Thai and lives in Bangkok, and there was a good chance I could meet her for lunch. If only I had a phone that worked...
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