Few more Portland pics and moaning about airfares

[thrihyrne]

Today I had another IKEA adventure with my downstairs neighbor. We also stopped by the DMV so I could get a booklet to read and study before I contemplate trying to take the written test to get an Oregon driver's license. I'm glad he was with me; he went inside and got forms and the book, thank goodness, because there was nowhere to park! He said there were probably 150 people there. I think I'll wait until I'm on my regular shift so I can go in mid-day on a Thursday.

We went to Ikea and I ended up buying a bedframe, slats, sheets, and a new, much thicker mattress. I assembled the bed this afternoon and I'm just thrilled. It's so comfortable. WOW. A month after I've moved, and at last I'm no longer sleeping on a thin mattress. This will doubtless do tremendous things for my mental health as doubtless I'll sleep better and quit being so achey all the time!


The first one is of the AAA building where I'll be working. I didn't mention this yesterday, but they have a thing called 'Friday Surprise,' and it turns out that at the end of the day, one by one each of us took a live call, hands shaking, scared out of our minds. But we all survived. It wasn't the suavest, smoothest call in the world (mine), but neither was it a complete travesty. And thanks to that, I've not been obsessing nearly as much as I would have. I've also come to an inner reconciliation about it all: I'll do my best and not worry about speed. I'm there to take care of people with a quality of service, and that's what I'll do. Speed will come, or it won't.

So... here's the building.


And here's my new bed!!


My room, and an interesting bit of metalwork I picked up from the Pier 1 in Harrisonburg last spring but had never hung up anywhere until now:


The house owner here has a daughter, Miranda, aged 9, who's here just about every other weekend and sometimes during the week. She's here this weekend and made a cat home with boxes, a towel, and a cat toy on a stick. Tigey, the cat, loves it.



In craptastic news, I'm doing research into air fares to get to London and back for the conference in October, also seeing veloona and callumjames. Callum, you will be around in mid-October, right??! I'd love to get over to Ireland for a few days as well, but figure I can finagle those logistics closer to time. I'm appalled at the air fares, and can't even think of the spending money since the £ is double the US dollar. Ouch. But $920 from Baltimore to London and back?? WTF?! I'm used to spending $1500 to get to Australia, but I've never spent more than $600 from the east coast to the U.K. Anybody have any suggestions?

Hope you're having a good weekend. I'm off to do some beta'ing. I'd also love to see some pictures/videos of any Olympics diving, but I'm so out of the loop and I don't think that any has happened yet. ♥

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

When my mother was sick, I went from NYC to Indiana twice in one month and both times the airfares were horrific and I took really crappy flights with ridiculous changes, not direct. And one of the sets of reservations was made with advance notice. Sorry! Maybe you can find a special deal since you have a little time.

Last time I flew British Airways from NYC to London the price actually went down closer to the travel date. A friend of mine who ended up going with me, on the same flight, got her tickets only a few days before we left and paid more than $100 less than I did. But I can hardly tell you to wait on the off chance that could happen.

[thrihyrne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know that I want to chance it, so I'll probably just go ahead and book it all today or tomorrow. I can worry about the finer details of logistics closer to time. Sometimes fares do go down, but I don't think that I can count on that.

Thanks for sharing your anecdotes!!