... From a two story hotel room, to bumming it out in a restroom at SeaTac airport.  Here is my story:

Yeah, things sort of went downhill after arrival..  Didn't leave the interviews feeling like I nailed anything.  Went back to visit my old Exchange team, everyone was still around, nothing much has changed in eight months.  Ashwin's back and I got to ride in his Infiniti G35.  Had dinner, got caught up a bit, and then realized I am screwed for my flight.  Got there about half an hour before take-off, and couldn't get my boarding pass cause they've started final boarding already.  Damnit!  Like, why is it that whenever I am on time, the flight is delayed.  When I am late, the flight is early?  So had to wait at the customer service line for *an hour* to get my flight rescheduled for the next day.  6:15 AM direct to San Jose (instead of 8:50 direct to San Fran)

So finally got a chance to spend the night at an airport.  I'm starting to really hate SeaTac, due to how intimately I know the inside of it now..  All the chairs outside the gates have armrest, so impossible to stretch out in them.  After some exploration, I found a Mediation Room, which I hid out in for a while cause it was pretty soundproof.  I originally planned on just sleeping there on the floor cause it was carpeted (compared to cold tiles on the rest of the bloody terminal), but then I visited the nearby restroom, and found my bedroom.

It had this separate room off to the side with a padded bench inside it.  No actual door, but the room was small enough, and the restroom didn't smell, so it was good enough for me.  Didn't slept well, but enough to be "rested".  Got up at 5, brush my teeth in my personal bathroom, and went to pick up my pass.  The terminal was crowded!  At 5 AM, I couldn't believe it.  As I walk towards the check-in booth, I saw someone had pitched a tent in the terminal.  How comfy..

There was a moment of panic when I tried to get my pass at the e-ticket booth and they told me to see customer service (nooooo!).  Finally did get my boarding pass, got to security check around 5:20, and freaked at the security line.  Fortunately, it was just another 15 min wait..  Got to the gate, oh, flight delayed by 15 min due to mechanical problems (recall Vegas incident about getting stuck there for a day due to "mechanical" problems).  But thankfully, the flight wasn't cancelled.  Lined up for boarding, got to the gate, and the lady said, this is a boarding pass, not a ticket.  You'll have to go see customer service..  Gah!  Could someone tell me these things *before* I start lining up?  Got my flight coupon printed, and finally arrived home.  Then slept for an hour before work in my own comfy bed.  Sigh.

And now I'm an experienced bum.

So I type this from this awesome hotel room in Bellevue, sigh, it's really too bad that I didn't have time to enjoy this MS-sponsored vacation more.  The trip had a rocky start, with the plane delayed over an hour, such that the next flight to Seattle after mine boarded and left before we did.  I really should have checked the status of the flight before we made that mad rush to cook and consume dinner..

On the plane, things started looking up: I got the whole row of three seats to myself.  Flight itself was shorting than I expected.  Halfway through, I pulled out my notebook and *gasp* started coding away at this feature I was implementing for work, and I couldn't finish what I was doing before we started landing..

Arrived at SeaTac, an airport I am way, way too familiar with.  Avis gave me a Corolla.  That's right, a Corolla.  It was that or a Cavalier.  Tough choice.  Actually, they ran out of intermediates, and the Corolla's compact, so they really should have given me a full-size.  But I wasn't gonna complain.  The Corolla is.. familiar, more powerful than the one back home, but the interior of the basic model really sucks.  It's so ugly!  Oh well, I still like it.

The drive to Redmond was fine, I actually remember the route!  The area by the 405 near downtown Bellevue is *still* under construction.  It's been eight months!! 

Arrived at the hotel, located within walking distance from campus, but whose existence I knew nothing about from before.  Waited like half an hour to check in, as a group arrived ahead of me, and the reception lady was nice, but slow as molasses.  I'm at the Marriott Residence Inn, sort of designed more for extended stay.  My room has two floors!!  Full kitchen, one king size bed, one double, two TV and two full bathrooms!  You can fit a whole family in here.  They even serve complementary breakfast and light meals!

Hehe, well that's prolly the most fun I'll have on this trip..  Tomorrow's an early start with interviews.  *Sob sob*  Wish me luck!

Edit: I have no idea why one of those bathroom photo's corrupted.  I can't find any option to delete it..

So I wonder if testing out this new MSN service constitutes as work.  One of the benefits of working for MSN I guess, I was told to try this out.  The photo gallery is pretty cool, the slide show's nice, but I can't reorder the images.  So yeah, I guess only the "best-of" photos should be uploaded there.  The music list intergrates with Media Player pretty well, but I can't figure out how it works yet.  As for the blog service.. Hehe, I don't even have time to update my real blog anymore..

Photo of my room after the weekend trip...