Leaving on a jet plane, better get seat 23A...
Trip Start
Jul 19, 2006
1
2
22
Trip End
Sep 19, 2006
Quito,
Ecuador
Thursday, July 20, 2006
After about a 45 minute delay in Houston, Texas, I boarded the plane that would be launching me into completely new territory. I've never been to South America in my life, and Ecuador has always been a pseudo dream of mine. I say ¨"pseudo dream" because it's more of a random inclination brought about by the presentation an exchange student gave to my spanish class in high school. He told us about how beautiful it was there, and how amazing the Galápagos were. It wasn't enough to make me go out and hop on a plane right then...just enough to plant a small seed in my head that would unexpectedly burst a few months ago.
Anyway, I got on the plane only to find that someone was sitting in my seat. My window seat. Let me tell you that I stayed up the entire night before my flight. Not a single nap. My eyes had not been rested. No Z's. Yes, this was dumb, but I was packing and had just discovered that we had Entourage OnDemand at home. I knew it would be ok anyway because I had a window seat waiting for me, and that is the only seat I can comfortably sleep in. Once I rest my head against that surprisingly supportive window I am out like a baseball player who just got his third strike. ::cough:: I'm experimenting with analogies.
Anyway, the seat villain looked up at me, staring me down with his "yeah, I got me a window seat, sucks to be you" face. I got to the seat and just held up my ticket, with the most innocent expression possible. He didn't even need to look at the ticket, he knew that seat didn't belong to him. He also knew the flight was full, so he would invariably be stealing someone's seat. This was no mistake. This was intentional. This was personal. Ok, maybe it wasn't personal, but I was not a happy camper.
He thought I would crumble. He had the nerve to look me right in the eyes and ask if I wanted that seat. Yes I wanted that seat! That's why I reserved it! I did not crumble. I just pointed at 23A on my ticket and kept nodding as though Facial Gesture was my first and only language. He moved with the reluctance of a baseball player who was just embarrassed by striking out at the plate and now is going up to bat again but is reluctant because he thinks he might strike out again. ::cough:: I'm sorry. But I got my seat.
Best plane sleep ever.
I arrived in Quito around 11:10pm local time (that's 12:10am for all of you still on EST...and 12:10pm the next day for those of you in Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia. How is Kuala this time of year, anyway?). While standing in line for customs, I saw a disturbing thing. I was standing sideways in the hazy jumble of a line, looking vaguely at nothing and listening to a rather boring conversation between a few adults who would each speak in turn about their brilliant child and how they got so many 5's on AP's but Nowhere University wouldn't give them credit. They were dripping underperforming midwest all over my South American adventure.
That wasn't the disturbing thing. The disturbing thing happened when my perfectly normal view of an unchanging floor was impregnated with a fallen suitcase right in front of me. The suitcase fell on the floor at my feet and I stared at it, feeling no need to look up because I figured the dropping party would immediately scramble to collect their luggage before a cop notices and calls a bomb squad to either search it or destroy it. The strange part is that the suitcase just sat there. Eventually I looked up to see why this person had not yet picked up the suitcase, and began to think I should turn this abandoned suitcase in as a potential threat to Ecuador's security. There was a young girl in front of me, collapsed in the arms of two adults near her.
Altitude sickness. She was in Ecuador all of 10minutes and she was down. She looked like what she would probably look like if all of a sudden a fish's brain was transplanted into her head. Her limbs were limp (because hey, a fish doesn't have limbs really so it wouldn't know what to do with them) and she had this stretched out fish-face with her eyes opened unusually wide for someone displaying that level of consciousness. This may sound insensitive, but really it isn't. It's illustrative. Anyway, she was fine and I was genuinely concerned about her well-being and all of that.
"Rick Hendrickson" was scrawled onto a sign being held by Rodrigo Arpi. Normally, I would think it normal for someone to misspell (note: in editing this post I noticed that I had mispelled the word misspell) my name by adding in the unnecessary "c", but Rodrigo is hispanic. The spanish language is so beautiful because of its lack of many unnecessary letters [translated into spanish: lac uv mani unecesari leters]. This is of course excluding the letter "h". I don't know how that "c" found its way in there.
Anyway, Rodrigo had a tough look to him. Tan skin, a face that demanded respect through the many ridges cut into it by years of experience. I'm staying with him and his wife, Nelly. As it turns out, this was not Nelly Furtado. I wasn't disappointed, though. Nelly Arpi was a very nice woman who cooks great food and is in no way like a bird that wants to fly away. She knows where her soul is. She knows where her home is. I know the Arpis through a very bizarre and extended connection, the details of which I will not bore you with (although I did spend 3 paragraphs talking about my seat on the plane...sorry about that). This put me about 7 degrees of separation away from the Arpis. In Ecuador, this means I'm family.
They live in Quito, about a 5 minute walk from the Airport (read: convenience). The house is like every house here: unique. No two houses are the same, with many very interesting interiors that have touches of stone in places you never knew would look spectacular if they just had a touch of stone. I had my own room, and after a little talking it was time for bed. Goodnight.
Quantifiable Summary
Flight from Maryland(BWI)->Texas(IAH)->Quito(UIO): $637(roundtrip, with taxes/fees), 10.5hours, good sleep.
Picked up by Rodrigo Arpi and staying at his house near the airport for an indefinite period of time. Great view of the city from any of their many windows.
Too late at night to really do anything but sleep.
Still alive.
