By Zhi Xiangming
Well, it might be boring for you but here are my series of unfortunate event on my way back to home:
It all started with red line train. Thought I had enough time getting to the airport, I decided to take red train and transfer to blue train instead of walking to the blue train station. No problem for me to pass the turnstile but my luggage handle got stuck in one of the stile. Usually there was an assistant or security guard inside the station - not this time! I looked around and realized I was on my own. It took me a minute or two to figure out a way to disengage my poor luggage from the stile. While I went down the stairs, a steady stream of people went up. Not until I got to the platform, I found out they must be from the train I hoped to catch and it has left :-(
And this only was the beginning. About 10 minutes later, I hopped on the next train, got off at Jackson and fasted into the connecting tunnel. This time the tunnel sounded more peaceful than it was two days ago. In the middle of the tunnel, people crowded into the tunnel from the other end. And again when I reached the blue train platform, I saw the train leaving the station and disappearing into the dark. Another 10 minutes wait :-( It was not boring though. A street musician who was white somehow got into a quarrel with a few blacks. It sounded like they were arguing who owned the spot. Words exchanged, voice raised but eventually it did not evolve into a fight before the train came. Anyway, when I arrived at O'hare airport, it was 9:30.
45 minutes to take off, I thought, not bad. Boy, I was wrong! Huge line at security check point - guess I underestimated Chicago! As the line proceeded, 4 minutes a turn I counted and there were 5 turns ahead of me. Not bad, I kept telling myself. Finally I reached the officer and it went south again - the scanner at the security check point would not took my boarding pass I got on my pad! He instructed me to get a physical boarding pass from the self check-in kiosk nearby. Well, it would not give that because I was only 20 minutes late! A nice AA agent nice printed a boarding pass from her machine and security guard was nice to let me get back to the front of line. Next, everything out of the pockets, belt off, shoes off, jacket off, you know the drill, and I passed security. 10:03, 12 minutes left...
Looking at my ticket, another bad feeling sank in: gate 17, the farthest gate :-( With no choice, I had to run and attracting eyeballs when I hardly avoided their owners. Approaching the gate, I were getting nervous. The line was almost empty besides 3 girls who was waiting for something next to the gate. While I was adjusting my breath, the attendant scanned my ticket. It beeped! "Please step aside". Oh-oh, My seat was taken :-( Now I realized another attendant behind the counter was helping to secure seats for the girls. On the top, they were all wearing the uniform seems to be from a horseback riding club. And on the bottom, pajamas! Guess they were late as well :-o I did not know how long it had passed and finally we were all seated. Before I strolled into the corridor I took a brief look behind. A lady was walking to the gate with a boarding pass on her hand. Unfortunately she did not make it - I was the last lucky one on board. 10:28. The plane left the gate. I was the reason it was late :-P
My adventure did not end there. Anyway, if you are not bored and still want to hear it, I will write the rest later. For now, I need to go to sleep. Still not fully recovered from the hangover :-P
Nighty-night :-)
Well, it might be boring for you but here are my series of unfortunate event on my way back to home:
It all started with red line train. Thought I had enough time getting to the airport, I decided to take red train and transfer to blue train instead of walking to the blue train station. No problem for me to pass the turnstile but my luggage handle got stuck in one of the stile. Usually there was an assistant or security guard inside the station - not this time! I looked around and realized I was on my own. It took me a minute or two to figure out a way to disengage my poor luggage from the stile. While I went down the stairs, a steady stream of people went up. Not until I got to the platform, I found out they must be from the train I hoped to catch and it has left :-(
And this only was the beginning. About 10 minutes later, I hopped on the next train, got off at Jackson and fasted into the connecting tunnel. This time the tunnel sounded more peaceful than it was two days ago. In the middle of the tunnel, people crowded into the tunnel from the other end. And again when I reached the blue train platform, I saw the train leaving the station and disappearing into the dark. Another 10 minutes wait :-( It was not boring though. A street musician who was white somehow got into a quarrel with a few blacks. It sounded like they were arguing who owned the spot. Words exchanged, voice raised but eventually it did not evolve into a fight before the train came. Anyway, when I arrived at O'hare airport, it was 9:30.
45 minutes to take off, I thought, not bad. Boy, I was wrong! Huge line at security check point - guess I underestimated Chicago! As the line proceeded, 4 minutes a turn I counted and there were 5 turns ahead of me. Not bad, I kept telling myself. Finally I reached the officer and it went south again - the scanner at the security check point would not took my boarding pass I got on my pad! He instructed me to get a physical boarding pass from the self check-in kiosk nearby. Well, it would not give that because I was only 20 minutes late! A nice AA agent nice printed a boarding pass from her machine and security guard was nice to let me get back to the front of line. Next, everything out of the pockets, belt off, shoes off, jacket off, you know the drill, and I passed security. 10:03, 12 minutes left...
Looking at my ticket, another bad feeling sank in: gate 17, the farthest gate :-( With no choice, I had to run and attracting eyeballs when I hardly avoided their owners. Approaching the gate, I were getting nervous. The line was almost empty besides 3 girls who was waiting for something next to the gate. While I was adjusting my breath, the attendant scanned my ticket. It beeped! "Please step aside". Oh-oh, My seat was taken :-( Now I realized another attendant behind the counter was helping to secure seats for the girls. On the top, they were all wearing the uniform seems to be from a horseback riding club. And on the bottom, pajamas! Guess they were late as well :-o I did not know how long it had passed and finally we were all seated. Before I strolled into the corridor I took a brief look behind. A lady was walking to the gate with a boarding pass on her hand. Unfortunately she did not make it - I was the last lucky one on board. 10:28. The plane left the gate. I was the reason it was late :-P
My adventure did not end there. Anyway, if you are not bored and still want to hear it, I will write the rest later. For now, I need to go to sleep. Still not fully recovered from the hangover :-P
Nighty-night :-)
During my first a few months in US, one guy told me that once my vocabular was large enough to include the word for "that turning gate used in subway station with metal bars stick out", My English would be better than most of native speakers.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, XiaoZhi
Now we have another twenty years to learn to use the proper gate for the luggage - what is it called???
ReplyDelete