When I have a high temperature, i.e. fever, I am very talkative. I just measured it up to 39.6deg;C (103.3°F). Now I don't have anyone to talk to verbally, so I'm blogging. You have been warned. But no, this post is not contageous.
I am in Ottawa since last night, despite all the challanges on the way -- our flight from Moscow was delayed by about half an hour, and in Washington there was a huge queue to the passport officers. And it was a queue for transfer passengers, who obviously have a connecting flight in a few. Airport personnel was of no help, they basically say that everyone is in the same situation. Well, I guess, it might have made sense to check the next flight take-off time of complaining passengers and move some of them to "US citizens" queue which was 6x smaller. They did that, but in random manner, i.e. for some passengers who already made it to the first row. I guess a CFQ scheduler would be a nice addition to that system.
Anyway, after more than 1 hour in a queue I reached the office and was allowed to enter the USA. This was only needed for immediately taking the plane to Canada (where there is another border and another officer and I have another visa in my passport). It is a bit strange to me that there is no direct way for transfer passengers going to other countries. When I said "thank you, sir, bye" to the USA officer, it was exactly 5:20pm -- the take-off time of my flight.
So I ran to the baggage check out, then to the security control, then to the gate (a helpful lady said the plane is still there). It took me 10 minutes to go from the officer to the gate, including the time to go back to pick one bag which I forgot at security check. OK, I am sweating and breating hard, but I am in the place.
The big problem is I caught a cold during the first flight, and now I feel strange. I can not listen to the talks (except for the keynote), I am taking pills (how paracetamol is named acetaminophen here, and all the other drugs are either absent, not OTC, or have different names is yet another story I won't tell here to save Internet bandwidth and LJ.com storage) and such, gargling the NaCl solution, and all that. So far it helps a little -- I either have a fever or feel like a slowpoke under the drugs.
My talk is moved from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning (not because of me, and I only found it while getting a badge). I hope I will be less of a hot vegetable by that time. I need to make it because I already did most of it.
I am in Ottawa since last night, despite all the challanges on the way -- our flight from Moscow was delayed by about half an hour, and in Washington there was a huge queue to the passport officers. And it was a queue for transfer passengers, who obviously have a connecting flight in a few. Airport personnel was of no help, they basically say that everyone is in the same situation. Well, I guess, it might have made sense to check the next flight take-off time of complaining passengers and move some of them to "US citizens" queue which was 6x smaller. They did that, but in random manner, i.e. for some passengers who already made it to the first row. I guess a CFQ scheduler would be a nice addition to that system.
Anyway, after more than 1 hour in a queue I reached the office and was allowed to enter the USA. This was only needed for immediately taking the plane to Canada (where there is another border and another officer and I have another visa in my passport). It is a bit strange to me that there is no direct way for transfer passengers going to other countries. When I said "thank you, sir, bye" to the USA officer, it was exactly 5:20pm -- the take-off time of my flight.
So I ran to the baggage check out, then to the security control, then to the gate (a helpful lady said the plane is still there). It took me 10 minutes to go from the officer to the gate, including the time to go back to pick one bag which I forgot at security check. OK, I am sweating and breating hard, but I am in the place.
The big problem is I caught a cold during the first flight, and now I feel strange. I can not listen to the talks (except for the keynote), I am taking pills (how paracetamol is named acetaminophen here, and all the other drugs are either absent, not OTC, or have different names is yet another story I won't tell here to save Internet bandwidth and LJ.com storage) and such, gargling the NaCl solution, and all that. So far it helps a little -- I either have a fever or feel like a slowpoke under the drugs.
My talk is moved from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning (not because of me, and I only found it while getting a badge). I hope I will be less of a hot vegetable by that time. I need to make it because I already did most of it.


Comments
No it is not. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol:
The words acetaminophen (used in the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Iran,[9] Colombia and other Latin American countries) and paracetamol (used elsewhere) both come from chemical names for the compound: para-acetylaminophenol and para-acetylaminophenol. In some contexts, it is simply abbreviated as APAP, for N-acetyl-para-aminophenol.
Aspirin is acetylcalicylic acid (this one I knew because it is sometimes sold under that name in Russia) or just ACA, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin