Ernie says "GO AWAY!"

So I went to AIESEC US's national LTM this past weekend. The following is my account of the crazy shit that happened outside of the actual meetings.

I got to the airport and it was a breeze to the terminal. I patiently started reading Life of Pi (yes, finally, and Shanky I still have your copy of it), and eventually the plane started boarding. My side of the aisle was just me until the very last moment, when the final person to board the plane was the window seat of my side (I was in the aisle).

Now, I don't know how else to describe this guy except to say that he was an older, fatter version of Mr. Bean. He had the same facial expressions, the same mannerisms, the same accent, everything.

He got to our seats, put his bag into the overhead bin, and then smiled at me and said "Excuse me." I let him in, and no more than a couple minutes later, I had to let him out so he could to get his bag. He sat back down, and then two minutes later, he had to get something again. This repeated 8 more times, and then eventually I said "You know, you have enough room underneath your seat to just put your bag there. Plus, I don't think there's anyone in the seat in between us, you could put it there too." He looked at me blankly, then after a couple seconds he brightened up and said "Ahhhhh."

Once we had taken off and were high enough to use our electronics, we both got out our iPods. 10 minutes later, I noticed that I was hearing something that wasn't coming from my earbuds. This really bothered me, because I always play my music really loud. I hit pause, and realized what I was hearing was coming from the window seat. I took off my earbuds, and it occurred to me that I was hearing Mr. Bean's iPod blasting Die Fledermaus. I'll let that marinate for a minute. Over the low blasting hum of the airplane, and through the loud house music coming through my own earbuds, I could hear HIS music. Meanwhile, he was slouched against the window, snoring softly. I looked around, and no one else seemed to mind that his music was loud enough to be heard within a 5 seat radius.

The view from my seat. Taken for posterity.

So we landed in NYC at 11PM and I scurried for the M60 bus stop. I'm standing alone there, and over the course of maybe 15 minutes, a flock of little Asian girls shows up, followed by an old married couple and disgruntled airport worker.
And immediately afterward, Blue Steel showed up. Picture Ben Stiller, but blond, 6'5", and actually a model. Er... so basically, a typical male model with Derek Zoolander's trademark pout. He maintained this expression until his bus came by.

The Q72 came up around the corner, and almost immediately Blue Steel dropped the pout and took on a look of sheer bliss. But it was not to be. As the bus got closer, it was becoming rapidly apparent that it wasn't going to stop. Slowly, the grin became a grimace of murderous intent. When the bus zoomed by us, Blue Steel dropped his bags and chased after the bus, screaming at the top of his lungs "WHAT THE FUCK?!"

This was enough to spook the flock of Asian girls into scurrying 50 feet to the taxi hub, but the old married couple merely snorted and went back to cataloging the contents of their bags. Blue Steel was trudging back, saying "Are you kidding me?" out loud to no one in particular. I just smirked and went back to my book (at around this point, Pi had successfully constructed his raft).

"Are you kidding me?"

Blue Steel furiously pawed through his blackberry, looking for god-knows-what. The pout had returned. The old married couple got on the Q33.

"Are you kidding me?"

The M60 finally came by, and I got on and produced two crisp $1 bills for the driver. "Coins only," she said, without even looking at me. Now it was my turn to say "Are you kidding me?!" So I shambled back into the terminal and found the change machine. When I came back, Blue Steel was squawking into his phone about the bus injustice.

"Are you kidding me?"

The bus had left me, and by now it was past midnight, which meant that the next M60 wouldn't come by for maybe an hour. Blue Steel came up to me and said "You know, the next M60 probably won't come for another hour or so." We got to talking about how retarded the New York airports were: JFK's clusterfuck qualities, La Guardia's insanity, and Newark's distance. A Q__ bus pulled up, and the Asian flock scurried over to get onto it, while Blue Steel meandered over to the taxis to talk to the cabbies.

"Are you kidding me?", as he headed over.

He came back a few minutes later. By now, half an hour had passed since the M60 ditched me for lack of quarters. "You want to split a cab?", he asked me. I replied, "Aren't you going into Queens?" He said, "Yeah, but you could take a train into Manhattan from there. I'm willing to cover 3/4 of the cab fare."

Are you kidding me?

Blue Steel seemed like a nice enough guy, but I had been to New York enough to know that taking the metro into Manhattan from Queens could take hours. So I fed him a bullshit response about how I didn't know Manhattan at all and was meeting friends at a specific subway station. He relented, and we said our goodbyes. "Safe travels," he said, and flashed Blue Steel as he ducked into the cab. The cab sped away, and I was left alone on the platform.

At that very moment, an M60 pulled up. It had been just over an hour since the last bus, approximately 90 minutes since I first stepped out of the terminal. I staggered forward with my fistful of quarters, only to hear the man in the driver's seat say to me, "The machine is broken. Ride is free."

...

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

The trip into and through Manhattan was pretty monotonous. The hostel was really kitschy and nice. I slept fitfully until the next morning and went to LTM.

Lunch was at a fabulous Turkish?/Lebanese?/Persian? place. The service was slow, but the food was worth it. No pictures to document this, sadly, but Northwestern has a new place in my heart from the conversations that took place. It turns out Richard finally got in touch with the LC there! Yay! Also, there was a girl there (whose name currently is escaping me) that's going to be in Shanghai at the same time as Katie and I. Now that's a network for you.


In the evening, we headed to Layaly for Ma'andi's final hurrah. Take note, kids, this place was amazing.

I'll let those speak for themselves.

Got back to the hostel at about 1AM. One of my roommates was busy washing his socks in the bathroom (yuck), and the entire room smelled like wet feet. I went to bed despite the olfactory assault.

When I got up the next morning, it only took me a few minutes to get washed and packed and down in the lobby to check out. When I got there, I saw one of my roommates arguing with the poor woman at the front desk. He swerved around, looked me dead in the eye, and screeched, "YOU STOLE MY WATCH!" Imagine my incredulity.

At this point it was already 9:45, and I had to walk 10 blocks to LTM. But this crazy motherfucker made me stay (by preventing the woman from being able to check me out) while he called the police over to arrest me and search my bag. Luckily, the po-pos thought he was as crazy as I did, and let me go whilst taking him down the hall to calm him down. My only regret is that I didn't snap a picture of the guy doing his wild "WHERE'S MY SHIT" histrionics.

I got to LTM at 11:30, an hour and a half late, but whatever. By the end of the day, we were exhausted. Costa gave us a ride, and this is what followed:


I got on my delayed flight and nearly finished Life of Pi (I got to the carnivorous island and couldn't deal with it anymore). Arrived in town at around midnight.

The end.


P.S. The other LIGERs are awesome.