These last few hours have been truly horrible. Mostly my own fault, but hard bought lessons.
First I was wrong with the time for when the plane departs, making me check out early and then have to spend from 4:30pm to 3:30 am at a pub, drinking lots of tea to please the owners so they wont throw me out. The last 5 hours I don't drink anything though. I get a taxi who drives me to the airport, I really need to go to the bathroom, and I'm so thirsty I'm feeling faint. Check in starts at 5am, my flight leaves at 6:20, last checkin at 6:05. No sweat, right? Wrong! The stores open at 5am, so does the bathroom. So I figure I check in my stuff first.
I'm about to check in my luggage when the woman looks doubtfully at me "no return ticket?" and I say "nope, keeping it open. Probably will head from canada to either sweden or Australia, not decided." This is where I learn that you must have a return ticket. Or a ticket out of the US, not greyhound, and it can't be mexico or canada. Since they are too close. Now it is 5:20 and I have 45 minutes to find an open airline counter who can make me a return trip. And it must be from the united states. I try 3 different desks, and the first two says "nooooo". The third guy, from Lufthansa, saves me though. I panic a bit, try to transfer money but the cellphone wont accept my code. I'm about to burst into tears, hyperventilating, stressed out, thirsty, feeling faint when I remember that I can also use a bank id box thing. I dig it out (I thought I lost it two weeks ago, but found it by pure chance only 3 hours earlier). I get my tickets (the printer refuse to work for 5 minutes due to technical problems). Time is now 5:50. The queue to the gate is miles long and my vision is growning darker and twitches about the edges. I've not slept for almost 24 hours and generally feel bad.
I manage to get on the plane this time (even though the ticket is from San Francisco to Arlanda, and then 10 days later from Arlanda too San Francisco again, since that return trip actually shaved off 400 euro from the price, again, Lufthansa is awesome!). I really need to go to the bathroom, and my mouth feels like a wasteland. I'm so tired I could just cry and stressed out beyond normal human comprehension. The flight then leaves from Berlin, goes to Dusseldorf where I take a connecting flight to Miami. The rest from here are just usual first time tourist mistakes and embarrassments so not worth mentioning or getting hung up on. During the flight, I cannot sleep at all. I nod off, and drift in some sort of semi-coma, but relaxing sleep, in those small, small, small seats is impossible. They have really gotten smaller lately.
The plane to Miami is late on arrival, so I miss the greyhound I wanted to take. I get directions though from local tourist information. I wish them a politically correct happy holliday and end up in a seedy part of West Palm Beach. I give up and manage to get contact with my host saying "Halp! I'm stuck!" and like a pair of angels, she and her girlfriend swoop down and rescue me.
I did have an interesting conversation though. A drunk man with long beard, about 65, he said but looked younger begs money for a beer. Being very charming I say no, rather than just ignore him. He then smiles widely and says "I don't recognize your accent, where are you from?" and we end up talking for 15-20 minutes. I learn that he is a shaman, that he got a magic hat, that he can use his power to influence people. That he is an awesome artist, that he is really good with music. And I deduce that he is a runaway compulsive liar. But he is fun to talk to and we share life stories.
On the train between Miami and WPB I meet another retired fellow from England, who spends his retirement backpacking everywhere. He just came from Mexico, and went to the stop after mine to visit some old friends. He is visiting all his old friends from when he was a teacher and international teacher to see which he still got good contact with and which he should really cut his ties to. That guy gave me lots of helpful hints and tips.
So, despite now 48 hours without real sleep, of going though my personal nightmare of a hell, I am now safe and sound. With lots of new experience.
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DAMN! Lost my power adaptor to the laptop at the cafe in Berlin >_<
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