This trip was fun. I flew down to Las Vegas from Seattle. Leaving home, I was late to the airport because of weather; the plane was also late to the airport so it was all right. I would have missed my connection in Long Beach CA so JetBlue bought me a ticket on Alaska. Their systems aren't integrated, so JetBlue had to cut a paper check to Alaska. (Fun fact: This check ($130) was approximately equal to the total fare I paid ($140).)
When I arrived, I came in several hours earlier than planned, so I was able to meet John Covert at his gate, which was in the same gate complex as I landed in.
Here should be paragraphs and paragraphs about visiting Death Valley, the Las Vegas Strip, and Hoover Dam. If I'm perseverant enough, I'll write them tomorrow on the airplane. In the meantime I'm skipping forward to tonight.
Aw fuck, I'm lonely and screwed.
In which I bitch about not knowing how to do things, and not wanting to spend money.
This afternoon (Wednesday afternoon), after I arrived at the airport and John departed on his way home to Massachusetts, it started to snow. Watching with a mixture of amusement and fascination, I commented on it to my friends over the free intertubes provided by the airport. Of course, when the departure time of my flight rolled around, there was a line of twenty in front of the departure counter, because the flight was cancelled. Sucks.
This was my first time being screwed on my own, I ought to say. I don't really have developed coping strategies, and I've never really done things on my own. Like an adult who doesn't know how to read but copes by coming up with excuses to get others to read for him, I've been getting along by travelling with friends who are more experienced or just more confident than I am. I've got some measure of confidence in my abilities, but not really that much. I just don't like to do things that need to happen. I just have trouble with maintaining myself, such as making appointments with doctors and so forth. So, I don't know, I had trouble with getting a hotel room and finding transportation to same. John was wonderful and threewayed me with an agent who helped me take care of registering the room, but I had to find my own transport.
Vegas has nothing in the way of public transit, and I didn't know any of it anyway. Cabs are a new animal to me, so first I looked for the shuttle bus terminal. This wasn't at all forthcoming. I bit the bullet and took a cab to this place, called “Tuscany Suites & Casino”. Cabs are expensive, damnit. The room's less than $22 after taxes (which is amazing, btw), but they make up for it by charging out the ass for everything else. About the only thing that's not an extra charge is an electrical outlet, and the bed. Room service is a $10 minimum, and everything costs $9 (clever, yes?). Local and toll-free calls are a $1 per call charge, while toll is a whopping $7 connect fee, plus AT&T rates, plus a surcharge of unspecified size. Wow. It's as if phone calls cost money again.
I don't really want to get dinner (this city isn't walkable at all, and the hotel food is expensive), so I'm considering just eating the rest of the package of oreos I have sitting next to me. Not healthy, yeah, whatever. Don't know what I'll do about breakfast tomorrow, maybe I'll skip dinner today and have oreos then. Breakfast is $9 delivered.
I don't know what there is to listen to on the radio, but there doesn't seem to be any dance station; it's all Latino music and christmas carols. This city is so focused on extracting money from people, and it's impossible to navigate in a reasonable amount of time on foot or transit. I don't want to ever live here.
Edit before I got to post this: Andy said he'd pay the $13 for wifi so I wouldn't be so lonely. *hugs* Andy, you're amazing and I love you.
cold