For real this time

The trip has started off with a bang. After getting up at 4am, getting a ride to the airport from my dad, and forgetting my breakfast in the car, I rolled up to the self checkin kiosk at the Delta counter. I entered all the appropriate information and instead of getting my itinerary I received the message, "good news, I found your travel records but don't want to give you your tickets so go stand in that long line full of angry people with dogs, snowboards, and broken dreams."
-thanks douche machine
Not to worry, as suggested by my mom, I had arrived a full 2hours early so I had plenty of time to be jerked around. 40min later and the line jumping of a rather obnoxious Hispanic family (started as 2 girls but grew to all 9 family members) it was my turn. "good morning" I said, "that wonderful machine has given us the opportunity to get to know one another."
John went straight to work on finding a solution to the mysterious shunning by the machine. "when will you be returning?" John said
"ummm, I'm not"
"that won't do. The system thinks you are a terrorist. You have to book a return flight or they won't let you in the country. I suggest you walk away from the counter and go book a flight online."
"No thanks John. I think I'll stay here and book my flight with you since we are becoming such close friends."
23min later I was rocking through security with my phantom flight itinerary in hand, found my gate and a seat close to the door. At the very moment they started to pre-board, one of the 2 Hispanic girls decided to try and let some of her family in the emergency exit door... Alarms sounded and TSA was all over. They cornered her by the WIFI/charging hub and asked if anyone had actually seen her try and open the door. Everyone looked away like they had just been told we were all getting strip searched. I raised my hand, "yeah, I saw her" (and she cut in line).
I boarded my plane after informing them that no one had entered or left the waiting area. I hope the rest of my trip is more low key.

Mathew

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Location:World Way,Los Angeles,United States

Holy cow, this team is awesome. Last Friday was our team party and it was fairly epic. Everyone brought their party hats, and we danced the night away. We had some sort of VIP room booked with amazing food, drink, and music of all genres. Once we closed that place down I somehow ended up in a taxi with a few others to meet Joseph at a club where we continued to dance and drink champaign to celebrate the team, and as it turned out, his birthday. cheers.

Move'n on up

It seems that buildings are going up all over the place here. My week back has been full of laughs with my new team, as well as late nights. There is so much work to be done and I find it a little hard at times not to be overwhelmed. I met my new account partner who is this delightful little badass chick who tells us how nice she is and in the same breath threatens to kill us.

This morning I went to look at apartments. The first one I saw was 70% open air... Top floor, 8th, with the kitchen and living room both outside on a balcony/terrace. Very strange and at the same time completely awesome! I want to check out a few more apartments since the bedroom in this place was smaller than the bathroom, also partially open air... Go figure


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Location:Esplanade Dr,,Singapore

Look both ways before crossing

I know some of you have been in countries where they drive on the left side of the road, but this is a first for me. I'm still a little weirded out when looking at an empty left front seat while shooting through cramped roadways. There are other patterns of behavior I am finding effected, walking for instance. Crossing the street presents an obvious danger unless I quickly revert to the lessons of my youth,"look both ways BEFORE crossing". Walking etiquette in general has been a bit of a disaster. Stairs, escalators, sidewalks, etc... I should stay to the left, not the right, but it just doesn't feel right and I often find myself going against the current. There are other cultural hiccups I'm facing but am adapting fairly quickly.
I figure I've covered about half of Singapore at this point and I feel confident of two things. One, Singapore is a beautiful and culturally rich and diverse. Two, I made some bad packing decisions. These will be addressed on my next trip.


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Location:Singapore

Day 01

Alright... So this is my morning cup of coffee... Aside from the fact that it's instant coffee there are other obvious differences from what I am used to.


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Location:Singapore

Trick or treat

So I got to my hotel about 1am (noon Chicago time). Needless to say I wasn't very tired so I did what any self respecting Chicagoan would do, i went to checkout the local nightlife. A lot of places were closing for the night, but the ones that weren't were in full swing. Music was blasting and people were dancing and drinking everywhere. So much fun. I made some new friends, 2 from India, 1 Chinese and a couple Australians. Not a bad first couple hours.


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Location:Singapore

I'm in a chair in the sky

So the trip wasn't as painful as I thought it would be, with most of the credit going to the fact I flew business class. Fully awesome chairs with casual lounge, gangsta lean, and sleepy town positions. I really have no idea how I'm going to do when I fly economy... Best not to think about that now.



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