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SaturdaySaturday morning, Teemu was not understandably quite as lively as I was -- and neither too happy to wake up to my inquiry call about the day's activities. We agreed to let the tired sleep a bit more, and I was set on my own for the morning.
So back to the hotel to pick up my companion it was. Teemu had recovered and was ready for a shopping spree as well. We had already yesterday made a plan for today to visit a huge mall known as the Galleria. We checked the destination from the sketchy map we had and turned our hood ornament (if the car had one, that is) in that direction. After some extra roadwork-induced wanderings, we found Richmond Avenue, a key ingredient in the recipe to get us to the mall. Actually the grid layout of the streets should have been extremely simple but we were somewhat thrown off, besides the constructions, also the freeway turning and messing up the grid at a strategic location. The intersections around these parts of the city had quite fancy round chrome street nameplates suspended in the air above the middle of the junctions. A careful look at the pictures below also reveals that some of the traffic lights have four lights, the reason for which is something that never became quite clear to me. In this case I somehow doubt that it is solely because of the big is beautiful philosophy.
Eventually we reached the target and parked the Batmobile in the enormous parking house below ground, making a secure mental note of the location. Having skipped breakfast (and eating being a central theme in our existence anyway), we once again set out in search of food and found a fast food restaurant area on the lower floor of the mall. Teemu once again opted for the safe hamburger, although his attempt to pay by credit card proved to be a complicated choice, basically a do-it-yourself method completely foreign to us. I strolled the booths and was lured to a Chinese pork-or-something by a free sampler turning out to be yummy. Not a bad choice. Next to the feeding area there were a few carts selling jewelry and phone accessories. Teemu's greedy eye got caught on a heavy silver chain necklace, which indeed changed ownership after some financial negotiation, and disappeared under his shirt. Dammit, why is this guy hauling a ton of metal on his neck and keeping it hidden so that no one knows it is there? We moved on and came to... an ice rink! After collecting the dropped jaws, it somehow made sense to have the rink where people are, but the energy economics of a rink in room temperature and direct sunshine from the glass roof two floors higher must be somewhat unfavorable. Well, oil is cheap...
Further excursion revealed more curious details. A US flag some half a dozen stories tall was hanging up high from the office tower in the middle of the mall. There was also a fountain dropping seemingly random sprinkles of water from the roof of the 2nd floor to the big bowl on the ground floor. We even took a ride in a glass-walled elevator to see a glimpse from above. Unfortunately we could not get too high because the offices on the top floors were locked and the buttons were not selectable. In the commercial area we found a toyshop with a severe closing down sale, everything with at least 50% price reduction. Teemu's American car collection was once again gaining more momentum, and even I gave up for a surge of nostalgia and bought two 1:25 plastic model car kits, the kind of which I used to put together at the age of 15, actually getting quite good at it before quitting, more for lack of time than lack of interest. I'll try to fit those into my next decennary plan -- but no guarantees.
Our time was starting to run out, but before leaving for the car, we still took a brief stroll in the gaming arcade at the bottom of the mall. The place boasted of all kinds of weird games, pleading to insert one or (usually) more quarters for a moment of fun. One of the weirdest was a disco dancing game, where the player was supposed to step on plates of different color according to the information scrolling on the screen; all this to music. Local kids seemed to do well; we did not dare a try -- in any game.
After some searching we found the car indeed. A more difficult task was to locate the way out of the parking house, but on approximately third round we succeeded in that as well. We set course for the airport, Teemu was taking me to continue to my next destination, Phoenix. The road to the airport was only freeways and simple, with the exception of the final turn to the rental car parking, which had a huge sign but was so unclear that even after passing it we wondered whether it meant that we should have turned right or not. Second try and the right turn yielded expected results and we reached the rental parking.
Teemu had changed his original plan to leave for home today and decided to stay half the next week as well to continue with the work, so I left him to negotiate rerenting a car. After quite a bit of arm-twisting, he got one -- but a different one, less to his taste and with a semifunctional GPS only -- should have reserved earlier. I took the shuttle bus to the terminal with my suitcase, computer briefcase and shoulder bag, and went searching for the check-in point of my selected airline. Finding it was a no-brainer, and I did not even have to waste time queuing due to the lack of queue. The only surprise was when the check-in lady announced that my case was a few pounds overweight. The solution to avoid the overweight fee of $50 was to move some items to the hand luggage, which I did. I wonder, by what magic the plane got lighter this way? Apparently it also would have been OK to have two checked-in items weigh as much as the one case did, makes just as much sense.
In the tax-free shops there were a few Western-style hats, and for a while I already pondered whether to invest, but since the stock was not entirely satisfactory, I took the chance of leaving the transaction to be made later, hopefully in Phoenix. I was not really hungry this time, but I still wanted something to pass the time -- which I seemed to have in abundance after all -- and I decided to get a shake. Unfortunately the burger shack sold me an out-of-supplies and told to retry after an hour (which I successfully did just before it was time to board).
The flight was uneventful and spent mostly with Captain Sisko, with the exception of the mandatory cokes and the small pouch of salty crackers or whatever. After reaching the ground on the Phoenix landing strip, I took my carry-on property and walked to baggage claim area to get my suitcase, wondering how we would actually recognize each other, not having exchanged a decent picture of either one. I settled next to the conveyor carrying the bags from my flight, waiting for mine to appear. Suddenly I realized someone was standing next to me, turned to check what's up, and there was this white-haired guy asking whether I was Jari. He said I had looked European... We exchanged a few words -- a few too many, since the next look at the conveyor displays showed no more my flight number. A quick search, however, located my trunk on the next conveyor so we fetched it and soon we were on our way to Bill's in his SUV truck.
In the darkness I could not get much of a picture either of Phoenix or Bill's house when arriving, so that was saved for later. Before getting to bed -- an early wakeup was coming -- Bill introduced me to his wife Robin, and I introduced them to my souvenir books from Finland. |
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