Home+sick

Got home yesterday afternoon but I’m sick and running a fever.

Getting home from Madrid was a little bit of an ordeal.

The first flight was late because of bad weather at our connection, Newark, which caused us to miss our connecting flight to SFO. So we had to wait in an hour and a half “Misconnections” line at Newark.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up some kind of a bug, because I was feeling so dizzy and clammy in that line that I had to sit down on the floor, only getting up to move when the line advanced (which was not very often since repairing the damage of a missed connection and explaining to the customer must be an arduous process for airline employees).

When we got to the head of the line, the man explained that we could take a 7 pm United flight, but he cautioned that all flights that day were leaving 1 to 2 hours late because of the bad weather so we could very well end up waiting on the plane 2 hours for takeoff and getting into SFO really late and tired. Considering that and my ill condition, we took the other option, which was to have Continental foot the bill for a hotel stay at the local Howard Johnson’s and our dinner and breakfast and then take a 7 am flight the next morning.

Since my parents still live in nearby Staten Island, I gave them a call from the airport and asked if they wanted to come by and meet us and have dinner with us, to which they agreed. They agreed to meet us at the Howard Johnson’s. We then took the Howard Johnson’s/Holiday Inn shuttle to the Howard Johnson’s where we were informed that they could not take anyone else with Continental vouchers and we had to get back on the shuttle and go to the Holiday Inn. The service at the Holiday Inn was lacking – since they had a lot of folks with these vouchers, they just plopped room keys on the table with no explanation. The room was really crappy and this was coming from the point of view of two people who had gotten used to staying in cramped European hotel rooms for the past couple of weeks. This one was very spacious, but it smelled bad, I don’t know, like a cheap hotel and it was really cheesy and pretty dirty. I had to call my parents and tell them to meet us here instead of at the Howard Johnson’s.

All along, I was feeling very dizzy and clammy. Nicole kept insisting that it was because we were tired from our travels. I told her that her theory was interesting but that I truly believed that I was sick. She didn’t believe me.

My parents came and we went to dinner at a Jersey diner with huge portions and it came with salad and soup and dessert. I had forgotten how good of a value those diners are. Along the way, I observed how everything in that part of Jersey is strip malls alongside a highway – sort of like El Camino but these are more like highways than El Camino. I don’t think I could live there. What a stark contrast to Europe’s small towns, alleys, and piazzas. The diner was quite good and my parents got to take home some leftovers.

After pictures and hugs, they dropped us off at our crappy Holiday Inn, where we collapsed without watching any TV. The next morning we got up and caught a 5:20 am shuttle to the airport where we easily made our flight. Along the way, Nicole bought us some frappucino-like connoctions from Dunkin’ Donuts (Coollata I believe it was called, which kinda sucked and made me feel more ill).

The flight was fairly miserable for me. I felt very feverish and I had waves of stomach cramps that came and went like tides (ooh, simile). When we made it to SFO, we looked up the price of taxis to Santa Clara and it was $122. Errrr, no. We opted instead to take the BART to Milbrae where we transferred to the Caltrain to Lawrence and there we called a taxi which cost only $18 to take us home. Much better.

Grateful to be home, I plopped on the couch with a blanket. Nicole took my temperature and I was running a fever of 101 so I got to give her a few “I told you so”‘s. I stayed under the covers the entire day and sweated up a storm while watching “Like Water for Chocolate”, a Mexican movie that had been on my TiVo wishlist for ages and which TiVo finally caught while we were away.

I slept fairly well last night and I’m feeling better than yesterday, but I’m still running a fever of 99 and change so I’m going to call in sick, something which I didn’t want to do, since I only have 3 more days with my old colleagues before I switch to my new job.