getting to UConn

Chronicles of Elysa flying solo from Sg through Dubai to NYC then to Hartford & the present attempt to get to school.

Sending off night
- Jud, Ken, Edwin, Daffy, Jiahua, ST and Gerry came to send me off (so sweet)
- so did pratically my entire village, on invitation of mom. i was in quite the state of distress when i realised just how many of my relatives were coming to the airport. boy am i glad that's over..

Journey begins! Sg -> Dubai
- arrived in Dubai at 4.39am, exactly on time for azan Subuh (what a good sign!)
- Sat waiting for flight at wrong gate =P luckily the right gate was just 1 gate down... till now i cannot figure out if they changed the gate or i read the screen wrongly in the 1st (and 2nd! i actually walked back to double check) place

In for the long haul: Dubai -> NYC (JFK)
- got a window seat, so felt squished and was holding my bladder like half the time
- complete couch potato experience, minus the luxury of the massive(ly more) amt. of space a couch offers
- backup plan, finding nemo, grey's (of cos), numb3rs, nurse jackie (which is quite dotdotdot), when in rome, ironman2

Overnighting in Baggage Claim
- Boy did the night feel looong; of sleeping in snatches while being frozen
- each hour passed so slowy and my eyes were so tired
- managed a caffeine kick as soon as the cafe opened for business today. wonder how long it'll last. (edit: till almost 3pm, it turns out... not bad.)

Reading material for the warm and fuzzies and to distract self from dwelling on how much waiting is involved
- Eat Pray Love, snagged from mommy dearest
- A Thousand Splendid Suns, courtesy of Daffy

"When stranded, play FB" philosophy
- update the whole world about your location
- using pay phone with quarters, nickels, pennies and dimes... and having the machine keep spitting them back out -..- then finally getting thru, and it's freaking voicemail! haha what luck
- no one to contact on a rainy Sunday morning as noone's in office. finally got a reply, and it's a non-committal "they should be at baggage claim.. not sure what time but shouldn't be too long" 2 hours ago. (edit: this eventually turned into 6 hours ago, but who's counting?)
- at least i found a powerpoint for laptop. pray my camping ends soon!! (lugging luggage is tiring work; airports shouldn't be outfitted with carpets)
- and a friendly airport officer is helping me look out for the UConn sign anywhere.. would be slightly more helpful if someone knew where the UConn shuttle will arrive, but you take what you can get!