November 13, 2007

A knock on my door … YIKE! I slept through my 4:30 wristwatch alarm, it was 5:25. I quickly got my pack and came down the 3 flights of steps. The same clerk was still there. She indicated that she would call my cab. I drank a little hot water and tried to clear my head of sleep, a slight hangover and my on-going cold. That young woman had saved me from an untold amount of hassle, had I missed my 7:00 flight. Unfortunately, I was so spaced out, that I failed to tip her. I have a ∈5 bill that I intend to send to the hostel for her, since I do not know her name. There was no traffic at 5:30. The young male driver seemed to enjoy the 15 minute trip to the Malaga airport in his 5-speed, Fiat cab, through roundabouts and the occasional off-road bit, at 120KM/H … F1!, ∈17. Thanks to getting my boarding pass the day before, I moved through the airport process fairly quickly. I had my final café con leche, croissant and outstanding jugo de naranja (OJ) in Spain, then into seat 10A for the 2.5 hour Air Europa flight to Paris (just paid ∈3.2 for a small cup of ho-hum coffee and a 33CL bottle of water! I expected to pay nada). I was wearing my Morocco Futbol jersey and some young Arab men said ‘Moroc’ in an encouraging way as I passed them in the Paris DeGaul airport. There was a true ‘cattle herding’ feeling to the Paris DeGaul airport passage. The worst part was the lack of any downtime. I had wanted to send all my paper Euro money to Hannah, so she could buy a new 1GB chip for her camera and have a party with her friends. I also wanted to mail a card to Nate, but no-go. I boarded a huge Airbus 330, 8 across in the cheap seats, less than ½ full. From that point I assumed that it would be ‘just another’ Atlantic crossing, and it was (38,000 ft, 11,582 m; -85 F, -65 C; 556 M/H, 901 KM/H). Leslie picked up me and me mochila at the Indianapolis airport.