I´m going to Chicago, I´m going to Chicago...

I´m on the plane bound for Chicago. An interesting occurrence about which I may have been overly excited: I was listening to some Zeppelin (forgive another reference) and randomly "When the Levee Breaks" came on and Robert Plant was wailing "I´m going to Chicago" repeatedly. I think this is a sign that Robert Plant supports my decision to study in Madrid. I mean, I could be reading this wrong, but I´ve always felt a pretty strong connection to him, so I think I may be right...

Only about an hour and a half into the plane ride and I have officially decided that my new favorite food (and in the top five of my favorite things ever) is warm cashews... WOW! I will never eat a room temperature cashew again! Also, I discovered that altitude and alcohol make an interesting combination. I took one sip of my fine chardonnay and I was drunk. It was as simple as that. One sip... drunk. It was incredible. The one thing I was disappointed about during our in flight meal was the cheese. Stupid cheese. Come on, American Airlines, if you´re going to serve me brie, make it real brie and not processed imitation brie. We´re classy up in here and we need some real brie at thirty-five thousand feet. Get it together.

Oh, wait, they just gave me a face-sized, warm, home-made chocolate chip cookie. American Airlines, I apologize for the brie comments. The entire situation is forgiven. Let´s start over. Now, I just need another glass of wine...

The movie they´re showing on the flight is called "Into the Arctic" and is a documentary about guess where. It´s basically Planet Earth, the poles episode, with about half the quality. I watched it for about half an hour and gave up... I´d rather just listen to Zeppelin. Outside the window it looks like we´re flying over the scenes on the screen; we´re flying over Utah or somewhere and the landscape is beautifully wintery. It makes me think of Tahoe. From this high up, the land looks like it has the wrinkles of a ninety year-old (or 5 1/2 billion year-old or whatever). Every now and again we fly over a big factory with colossal smokestacks in the middle of wintery nowhere. It´s sad that I can turn around and see the billows of smoke a long time after I can´t see the factory anymore.

Hey, wait again! The flight attendant just gave me the extra warm cookie and winked. Sweet. That´s what you get when you´re nice to people who get shit from everyone else all day. As my father always says (and as he told me only 2 days ago at the bank in Tahoe City), you get more flies with honey than with manure. I was never quite sold on this expression (because I think flies enjoy both honey and manure), but I get what you mean, dad. I am loving the headphones, by the way. We chose well.

I realize I´m really not saying anything important so I´m going to stop... the end.

p.s. Rachael and Nate, thank you SO MUCH for helping me this morning! It would have been a horrible beginning to a great adventure if you hadn´t been around. I miss you already!