ah, the weather is so nice in L.A.--I passed a sign yesterday that said the temperature was 81 degrees..woe is me.
Traveling out here was ridiculous. My flight was at 8:12am and I arrived promptly at the airport at 6:15am. I was able to check my bags in quickly through the self-service e-ticket line...but then I turned around and saw the horrendous line to get through security. It was like we were at Disney land. The line wrapped around the entire corridor and zig zagged twice. By the time I went through security, I had forgotten I had 2 quarters in my pocket and set off the metal detector. I was then scanned and asked to take off my shoes--at which point they scanned my feet and then put my shoes through the metal detector again. By the time I ran up to the gate--7 minutes late--I had missed my flight. What was frustrating was that my plane was still there, sitting at the gate. They had turned down 12 other people ahead of me and sent us all off to the customer service center to get rebooked. The entire time I waited in line, I could still see my plane just sitting there. What's funny is that they rebooked me on a direct flight to L.A., which landed me there 1.5 hours earlier than originally planned; unfortunately, my luggage was on my original flight...so I hung out at LAX with my parents just to wait for my suitcase full of presents. That kind of worried me--technically, my luggage got on a flight that I never got on. There's no foolproof way of knowing if a passenger actually gets on a plane that his luggage gets on. After the TWA flight way back, I would've thought that was something they'd check.
Since arriving here, we've just been eating a lot of Chinese food and seeing relatives. I was suprised by the appearance of my 18 year cousin whom I haven't seen in at least 2 years. She now wears makeup, has long hair, plucks her eyebrows and has a sense of style.
The biggest surprise was seeing my friend Ben. His parents called up my parents and said that he was coming back for Xmas...perfect timing. So yesterday, we all had lunch and Ben took Aaron and I back to his new house in Newport Beach where we hung out for the rest of the afternoon.
Tonight, I go back to rainy Seattle...but I can't wait to take off for Mt. Bachelor and go snowboarding..wahoo!