i am here
the flight was long. i was sitting next to your indian gramma. she was nice but was hanging over my seat and i had a hard time dislodging her when i needed to get in or out. she wouldn’t get up and wanted me to squeeze past/over her. yeah, no. get up, gramma. i think that transport is maybe done differently in india, if i may extrapolate from that one data point and a bunch of hearsay. but i’m in scotland now so i’ll get on with a scotland anecdote…
a very nice fellow, dominic, from the amazon office (it’s called s9 here, in case you hear me referring to it as such) very graciously picked me (and my bike) up at the airport, took me to my flat, drove me to his flat where his wife cooked dinner, and then sent me home with some fruit for morning. so far, so good.
in the airport carpark, as i was trying to get in the passenger side of dominic’s car, i saw a six-year-old girl getting into the driver side of the car next to us. i thought to myself, ‘whoa. it’s kinda fucked up that they let six-year-olds drive here, but i should respect our cultural differences because i am a guest in their country.’ then i realized that it was me who was on the wrong side of the car. everyone else was fine. i am glad i am only riding a bike here, this way i can only really hurt myself.
oh, and i learned something today: don’t try to get through passport control at heathrow by telling them that you’re here to ‘work’ and that you have no idea where you’re staying, it raises a flag.