pingtung, belatedly

a few weeks ago I was feeling really bored and lonely.  there weren’t enough hours at work, I don’t have an overwhelming number of friends, I’m still bad at chinese… it was just a quick case of the blues on a gloomy rainy day.  so I decided to treat myself. I went to a relatively cheap but delicious italian restaurant and ordered a tortellini as big as my head. 

I was just getting into it, but my phone rang. which is kind of an event in and of itself, given how infrequently someone needs to get in contact with me. I picked it up, and it said “unknown number.” which ordinarily I wouldn’t pick up, because I get enough wrong numbers, just people speaking chinese on the other end and confusion for everyone, but since I was lonely and bored, any human contact sounded good.

“hello?”

“kevin, hi, it’s tessa. [nicole’s friend from her program in pingtung, we met a couple times, she’s great] I’m at the airport right now trying to get to kaohsiung [city in taiwan near pingtung], but they changed my flight and now I’m routed through taipei? can I crash at your place in like 6 hours?”

so I’m thrilled. clearly, god has looked down from on high and decided to take mercy on this poor lonely boy by sending him company from out of the country. 

“yeah, that should probably be okay, I guess. what time are you landing?”

...

later

...

tessa lands at like midnight, has to take a cab the entire 40 minute drive from the airport because the buses closed right before she got there, and shows up around maybe one am.  somehow, she has a smile on her face, despite what sounds like one of the top 5 worst travel experiences I’ve ever heard, involving cancelled planes, broken tickets, and astonishingly unhelpful “customer service.” at least they didn’t lose her luggage. 

she’s going to pingtung to visit youming, the taiwanese boy she started dating right before she had to leave taiwan. unfortunate timing.  she’ll be staying there for a little over a week, and would I want to come down and visit at some point?   hell yes I want to come visit, I need to see more of this country while I still can.  I figure I can dip out of taipei sunday afternoon and stay until maybe 2 pm tuesday. one full day.  we set up very tentative plans, went to bed, and when I went downstairs in the morning, tessa was already gone.

to be continued.