April 13, 2008
In Chile. Oh Joy.
[UPDATE, 11:30 PM: Thanks for your messages. I'm alright now...or at least I feel better. Got a hug or two. Haha. And. Well, if I don't let go of this I'll feel miserable all week. I'm trying. Ate some really awesome food today and am unable to retain all the information that is being thrown at me. I'm intimidated by my group members, but they're really nice people and I'm the youngest, so I shouldn't feel so...dumb. And I'll never learn this much about Chilean food again in my life, so I need to keep in mind what a priceless experience this is. Gaah. I might feel better if I had a toothbrush though.]
I am not excited yet. This is why:
First flight out of Newark to Miami was delayed by more than two hours. Meaning I missed my original connection flight to Santiago in Miami, but I was easily transferred to another flight about two hours after the other one.
My two worries: would the people at Pro Chile know that my flight was delayed and know to pick me up from the airport later, and would my luggage get to Santiago?
Of course, no. And no. It gets worse. Or rather, it could be worse...maybe I should count my blessings.
The flight from Miami to Santiago was on American Airlines instead of the original LAN. I think LAN is probably better. Oh well. Fail. I don't know if I got much sleep on that 8 hour flight.
Of course, luggage is still in Miami since it was originally supposed to go on the flight that I missed. If AA doesn't fuck up too much, it'll be here tomorrow.
And of course, the people are Pro Chile didn't know my flight was messed up, so the driver who was supposed to pick me up didn't wait a million hours for me. Which is okay—I wouldn't expect other people to wait so long for me—but I called my mom when I was in Miami to email someone at Pro Chile to tell them I was delayed by two hours. Maybe the email didn't go through, or it wasn't checked...I tried to make sure someone would find out. Fail.
And the big "oh fuck shit this I want to go home" is that a cab driver (or two cab drivers) scammed me out of $555. I'd rather not explain how because it'll make me look like a total idiot, but one cab driver helped me figure out how much money to take out of the ATM (...yes, I look really dumb now) and I thought it was around $50, but no, extra zero, $500. Or $555 I realized after looking at my bank account info online. The more I think about how stupid I was the worse I feel, so I'm trying...not to...although it's really hard. Basically two cab drivers helped me get a cab; one guy was super nice, the other was kinda meh, and at first I thought maybe it was just the second guy who scammed me but maybe they were in it together, which makes me really....sad.
Maybe I'm lucky that that's the first time I've ever gotten scammed. I've never even had anything stolen from me before. I guess this counts though.
At least I didn't get my wallet stolen. I guess.
At least I didn't die on the plane. I guess.
It's hard to look at the bright side right now. I kind of just want to cry. But that won't solve anything. And I'm supposed to be happy that I'm in Chile, but so far, I'm not. And how, even though I know I have enough money to spend on ...various things, the notion that I just wasted $555 doesn't make me want to spend any money. Except for the $3 I'm spending on the Internet right now.
I feel so stupid. I feel stupid all the time. Why can't it ever end? And thinking that none of this would've happened if my first flight hadn't been delayed by two hours makes me angry as well. Stupid, angry, and frustrated do not make for happy excitement of any sort.
I'm closing comments because I may not get to go back on the Internet for a while. So whatever. This is just a little update.
Posted by roboppy at 10:50 AM
: This is the 
