Ananndale On Hudson

I'm sitting in a dorm room at Bard College, trying to make out the mountain that I know is outside my window, but this morning is shrouded in clouds. This is the second day of orientation, and I would be looking forward to it less if the staff weren't as great as they are.

How did I get here? Well, I boarded a six am flight on Sunday and waited and waited. We found out that a huge nut on the landing gear had a torque problem. The flight attendants started pulling people off the plane and onto different flights, and then we ALL got off and lined up at the counter. Luckily, I was close to the front of the line. Even more luckily, a woman called my name after a bit. She told me that the next flight to Albany was at 1:05pm. Nooooo problem, I thought, and set off to Concouse A.

During my seven hours of leisure time, I struck up a conversation with a man on his way to Coloumbus, OH. He sells lab equipment for Johnson&Johnson, hadn't checked his email, and was chagrined when I told him about the counterfeit diabetes test strips Johnson & Johnson got from China. I found a discarded newspaper. I listened to This American Life. I read the book Gabby gave me. And I worried about my luggage.

Finally the 1:05 flight came. Luckily, I sat next to a wonderful, chatty woman (chatty until I fell asleep) who stuck with me after disembarking, giving me advice on how to figure out where my luggage was, lending me her cell phone, and sticking with me until Sooz (from Bard) arrived. I was so grateful. She had all these tips, like, "Once you see that your luggage is not coming, quick go to the luggage claims office, because a line'll form" and "They're required to send you your luggage, but usually they ask when you can pick it up. Be firm, give them a sob story, and they'll ship it through UPS." As it turned out, my luggage arrived about twenty minutes after I did, a bit smudged, but intact and present.

We made it to the college, I got some dinner, which included lots of tasty corn on the cob -- er, ears of corn -- and crashed around ten.

Yesterday was a lot of info, a lot of sitting, a lot of walking (this campus is loooong), and my neck started to hurt. And now it's time for breakfast. Cheers!

Edit:
I forgot to mention that I have my host family information. I'm living with Tatiana Ivanovna and her son Andrew (don't know his age) at 42 Korablestroiteley. I move in Saturday.