My trip so far

My flight from Kansas City on Tuesday began with a child screaming… which pretty much sums up the entire trip. First there was the tantrum thrown by the kid made to give up his window seat because his brother’s car seat had to ride there. The tantrum hit a crescendo when his mother had to physically remove him from the window seat and continued until he was distracted by the possibility of banging his fists against the tray table attached to the back of my seat.

When I sat down in my aisle seat for the flight from Detroit to Amsterdam, I had the row to myself and no one was sitting in front of me. Unfortunately, they delayed the flight so that 65 people would board from a late flight. Among the late arrivals were half a dozen Indian women taking their newborn and infant children back to India to show the grandparents. If someone told me that there was some bizarre migration of Indian women and their children back to India every Febraury I would absolutely believe it. I learned a valuable lesson. When picking your seats for an intercontinental flight, do not pick the seats near the bulkheads that separate sections of the plane, because that’s where the basinets are located (and therefore the kids). For all of the babies, the flight was very pleasant. Northwest has an on-demand video system for every seat on the plane, so I was able to plug in my heavy duty headphones to block out the screaming. I watched two complete movies, including The Departed, both of which I wanted to see. It was a breeze.

Since arriving in Zagreb I’ve spent my time unpacking and taking care of all of the bureaucratic messes that always go with these trips: getting a visa, getting a student ID, finding classes, getting a bus pass. Despite feeling woefully unprepared, the process has gone very smoothly.

What has not gone smoothly is sleeping in my dorm. The dorm is massive and “students” clearly enjoy the entertainment options available to them. There has been some kind of event in the common area every night so far. That’s no problem. The problem is that there are also two night clubs across the street from my bedroom window. Between jet lag and the loud music until 3am, I have slept a total of 9 hours since leaving Kansas City on Tuesday (it is now Friday night). Last night I slept for an hour or so before the music started, then I was awake until 5:45, forty-five minutes before my alarm went off. Needless to say, today I invested in a pair of earplugs. Hopefully they succeed in keeping out the noise from tonight’s “Jagermeister party” and fail to get stuck in my ears.