i made it. now i'm crashing.

oh my god. i’m so tired. it’s almost 8 pm on Tuesday night here, which makes it just about 6 am on Tuesday morning in California. I haven’t slept since Sunday night. OH MY GOD I’M SO TIRED. but maddy and i need to stay up until at least 9 pm here to cure the jet lag. well, I suppose we don’t HAVE to. nobody’s going to shoot us if we crawl under the sheets at 8:30. but we set this arbitrary time and since I’m an Arnold, I really stick to made-up rules no matter what. so 9 pm it is.

(I should note here that I’m typing this in word first, which should explain the capital letters, despite my earlier tirades on the subject.)

so. I owe you some stories about how I finally arrived here, but plane/airport stories are all kind of the same and dull. the flights went seamlessly smooth, and the transfers were (mostly) easy. we left at 1:20 am on Sunday night/Monday morning and stayed in darkness until Tuesday morning coming in to hong kong. for our entire 14-hour flight, we felt like it was near 4 am…like, we were tired enough that we could doze off, but if we occupied ourselves (aka ate something) we could stay awake. it’s a weird feeling.

but I know you, friends and family, and I know you’re curious why I put that sneaky “mostly” in parentheses up there. I’ll explain.

I’ve had a cold for the last week or so, but it hasn’t been bad. at this point, it’s only a stuffy nose, so the only disturbance to my life has been excessive nose blowing. not a big deal. but since the spread of swine flu, everyone’s been really freaking out about swine flu. I thought the US was bad; nay, dear friend. When you arrive in hong kong, you have to fill out a health inspection report type deal, where you put in your name, passport, etc., and you check if you have one/any of these various symptoms, like fever, runny nose, cough, sore throat, blah blah blah. lying crossed my mind, but only for a brief second; I knew my stupid runny nose wasn’t the freaking flu. so I check off the “stuffy nose” box on the piece of paper and head off toward the immigration tables, paper and passport in hand. once we get to the front of the line, I hand my stuff to the health inspection guy.

HIG: (looks over paper, points to stuffy nose box) “is this a problem for you?”
me: (in typical, worry-free nicki fashion) “Oh, yeah.”
HIG: (leans over to fellow HIG, says some stuff in probably mandarin) “okay, we’re going to have to take you down to have some simple tests.”

what’s funny here is I didn’t even really stress. as the guy lead me away from the immigration station, I called out to maddy that I would meet her back there soon and followed quickly behind the guy. he handed me a mask (lol yes, I know) and took me to this little medical area downstairs, where the sweetest asian woman took my temperature (in my ears) and told me I didn’t have a fever, so I was safe to travel. (so dad, be reassured: you didn’t pass me swine flu. the hong kong airport has confirmed it.)

hrm. I probably wanted to share other wildly interesting stories, but I can’t think right now. I’ve never wanted to sleep so much in my life. (that’s probably not true. one time I was up all night writing a paper for my presidency class and around 5 am I couldn’t believe how much time I’d spent on a STUPID PAPER. then I found $5.)

I’ll share more stories with you when I’m not aching to watch my eyelids so badly.

what will i forget?

isn't this always a fun game to play when you're packing?

i always remember to pack dumb things like christmas mouse ears, three pairs of flip flops, and pez dispensers (note: these things are all actually coming with me). but knowing me, i'll forget something major like my camera battery or wallet. silly nicki.

anyway, my flight leaves at 1:20 am out of sfo, so maddy and i are aiming to get to the airport around 10:30 pm. then we fly 14 hours to hong kong, kick it there for 2 hours, and then hop on another plane for a two and a half hour trip to bangkok. we'll arrive in bkk at 10:35 am local time, meet up with a group of people from the teach in thailand program, then hopefully go to a hotel where we'll be able to shower because i'm gonna be DIRTY. traveling dirty is a special kind of gross...full of grease and so caked on. YUMMY.