My experiences in the past few days have reminded me an important lesson when traveling: whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Sometimes life just throws you some curveballs, and there's nothing you can do but take it with a grain of salt.
For example, the morning of my flight there was a worker's strike at Charles de Gaulle airport leading to a delay of 30 minutes, as it were. I had a connecting flight in Vienna, and despite the kindly German lady sitting next to me who assured me that I would catch the connecting flight (to leave 45 minutes after the ours landed), I couln't help but worry about catching that flight.
Apparently I wasn't the only one; scores of other people had connecting flights too, so when we got to Vienna there were so many people running through the airport (with bags in tow) it kind of looked like an Olympic race (call it the 600-meter Airportathlon). I vowed to come out at the top and overtook one man who was going in my direction. We got to the gate, but alas, too late; the plane had already taken off. Even though I won, I still lost. It turns out we were both going to Taipei. The man and I went to the service counter, where we got tickets for our next flight nine hours later to...Bangkok (no connecting flights).
To make a long story short, my trip ended up taking 29 hours instead of 18, I arrived at my hostel at about 11pm on Tuesday night, and they forgot to send my luggage. I did walk around aimlessly in Vienna for about two hours and ordered some bratwurst ("ah, you meen brAATvoorst," the vendor had said).
Back to the luggage, I just got it back today. I had bought some underwear and socks in the meantime, but you can imagine how stinky (and sticky) my khakis and hawaiian shirt were getting. Oh what a joy to put on a clean t-shirt, some sandals, and shorts! Even though, after about 30 seconds I was sweaty again.
I confirm. It is hot and humid here. All my low-impact rules (try not to use too many plastic bottles, don't use air con) have gone out the window so that I can keep cool. And despite my ex-colleague's (Christine, are you reading this?) concern about old air-conditioner's filters which, according to her, are 'breeding grounds for bacteria,' I'm still using the AC in my room. In the daytime, it's 36 degrees celsius outside (96 degrees fahrenheit in the shade).
For now I'm living in a hostel which somewhat reminds me of the cheap hotel Tony Leung stays at in 2046 (except grimier, and without the hot actresses). I still have a bunch of stuff to do, like register for classes, get a resident card, find an apartment, and stuff... But for now I think I'll just go out and eat some jiaozi (dumplings) at the yeshi (night market). Mmmmm
The heat of the sun is already making its presence felt on this sunny morning in Taipei. I'm eating at a restaurant around the corner from my hostel which specializes in breakfast (apparently there are many such restaurants here). I've gotten on pretty good terms with the cook, who takes orders while flipping eggs and pieces of bacon on the grill. She is a short middle-aged woman. I can't see most of her face because it's covered with a hygienic mask, but I imagine by the way her eyes squint that she is smiling when I talk to her. The lady has pretty much figured out how to talk to foreigners with the least amount of stress on either side. This is an example of our conversation (in Chinese, of course).
