I think that just like Mitch Hedberg's "One complicated payment," someone decided that since most of the trip had gone awesome, the last part would be made as difficult as possible. My 6:30am flight from Dublin to Manchester was delayed for two hours because of poor visibility, but we didn't find out until we had left the gate, so we had to sit in the plane for two hours watching the sun come up and waiting for the weather to clear. I didn't really mind much, as I slept right through it, but the delay made it nearly impossible to catch my transatlantic flight from Manchester to Boston. To make things more interesting, my duffel bag decomposed a little more at a critical moment. I hurriedly checked in my bag, the woman stuck the label on the strap, and then as I lifted the bag (by the strap) onto the belt, the strap broke. I sighed and showed it to her and she had to cancel the check-in and check in the bag again to get a new label to put on a different strap. That was the third loss of structural integrity this bag has suffered, and this one left a hole for things to fall out of. Fortunately, I only had large things in that pocket, so nothing got lost, but it was disconcerting. Fortunately, the bag made it home without any further incidents, but it's certainly never leaving again.

I did barely make it onto the plane (and got to hear my name announced over the PA system), and the flight across the ocean was uneventful. My earlier ordeal was relived, however, when my flight from Boston to NYC was delayed because of excess traffic at JFK. Once again we sat on the tarmac, this time for three hours (which was frustrating, since the flight itself only lasts 35 minutes). To make things worse, it was a smaller plane and I had had to check my carry-on bag, so the only entertainment I had with me was the book in my hand, which I finished within 20 minutes. It was a long and frustrating wait, but I could appreciate the aesthetic symmetry of it; once again I watched the coming and going of crepusculum, this time yielding night.

Finally, though, we were allowed to take off, and I was soon in New York, where I met up with Liz and had dinner. From there I took the subway to Michelle's dorm. She had originally been planning on going out once I got there, but as the hour grew late and our tiredness grew more apparent, we came to realize these plans would not come to pass. Instead we just hung around in her dorm, which was fun because her suitmates are pretty cool. I got along particularly well with her roommate, Madison, who plays guitar and is into photography. She showed me some of her pictures, which I liked quite a bit, and we took turns playing guitar — she taught me how to play What's Going On by the Four Non Blondes, which resulted in an apartment-wide singalong. It felt like I was back in sixth grade.

In the morning, as Michelle and I were walking out of her dorm to head to the airport, we happened to run into Andrea, so I got to see her for a few minutes as well. That worked out excellently.

We then rushed to the airport. It seems that I paid my dues in full with yesterday's travel ordeals, because today has been much less unpleasant. For the most part, anyway. We were making good time, actually early for our flight (it was a weird feeling), until we got on the wrong train that took us off into some random part of Queens. By the time we got back to the proper line and got on the right train, we had consumed all of our safety margin. We made it to the airport with four minutes to spare before the 45-minute check-in cutoff, but that was good enough, and then all was well. We even managed to sit together on the plane — the guy sitting next to me was really nice and friendly and was happy to switch seats with Michelle, even carrying her bag over to her new seat for her. It's great that nice people still exist.

When I got home, I encountered one more little surprise. While I had taken my key to the front door with me on the trip, I left the rest of my keyring at home. When my parents left the house several days after me, they locked the hallway door. My key to that door was in my bedroom, behind the door. Blast. Fortunately, my grandparents have a spare key, and they were home, so now I'm safe and sound and in my house again.

It's not with excitement that I return to PR, but in some ways I'm happy to be back. Michelle will be here for a few days, which helps to ease me back into loneliness without having to go straight from all to nothing. And I've got a cadre of new friendships that I now get to start cultivating — that's always an exhilarating place to be, with so much potential fun ahead. I've also got the new Harry Potter movie waiting for me, which is an embarassingly exciting prospect. And Andrés, Michelle, and Andrea will be down in only a few weeks for Christmas break. So really, I can't complain.