well, it was fun while it lasted but now i'm back.

for those who might some day travel through atlanta hartsfield-jackson airport (ATL): i can highly recommend the sweetwater brew house (beeradvocate) in Terminal B. ATL is set up like a long tunnel with a train to shuttle you around, so it's easily accessible from the other terminals too.

the food is as pricey as anywhere else, but the portions are HUGE; the nachos + popcorn shrimp combo is definitely pub grub for > 1 person. but really the main draw is that they serve their own brew, which is of good quality and surprising to find in an airport. i sampled the "420 West Coast Pale Ale" and the "Brown Ale". both were good but the pale ale was definitely the winner between the two.

hangin' in san clemente:

no joking -- someone was playing the eagles when i walked out on the balcony. i'll be putting all my photos here.

kickin it in berlin this weekend!

will say more later but i'm already uploading photos.

i was quite happy with my flight from CPH to SFO, having the long trans-atlantic leg landing in seattle with a short connection to SFO thereafter. ideally this beats making a connection on the east coast or via detroit, where most of the other flights went, since it takes just about as much time for the first leg but then the domestic connection is twice as long.

quite happy, that is, until united cancelled all SFO bound flights out of seatlle. something about not wanting to take off during a snow-storm, bah.

3 hours of lines and phone calls later i'm at a super 8 motel just outside the airport mooching some free wireless, trying not to collapse while i wait for a pizza. it's only what... 5:30 AM sweden time?

the worst part of all this isn't the delay, or having to pony up for a hotel room (unsurprisingly united doesn't offer any kind of vouchers for "force majeure" type problems like this). the worst was without doubt having to stand around and listen to all the fucking self-righteous bitching, moaning, yelling and screaming going on from my fellow travellers who were incapable of dealing with the fact that they would be somehow inconvenienced.

i mean, don't get me wrong, united airlines sucks a big fat one. their staff was completely unprepared and totally mishandling the situation. they could have put someone in front of the customer service area who could communicate the necessary information, answer questions, etc, and a lot of this could have been avoided.

but still... to act like it's a god-given constitutional right to be a total fucking asshole, to treat service personel like a lower form of human being, just because you want to feel a little better about yourself? that's just disgusting. i literally had to stop the guy behind me (middle-aged WASP type coming back from vacation in mexico) from coming to fisticuffs with an agent.

i'd gladly pay $60 and wait a night to not have to be around these people (not like i have a choice in this particular case). however i fear i'll be running into the same crowd tomorrow as i try my luck with standby flights in the morning...

a utility box, or...?