I'm gonna take that $2.50 and....

Alternative blog post names considered:
1. Fundamentally positive , always landing on my feet
2. Trainwreck 2 or Trainwreck continued

Go straight to the stop! That's how much money I recently had on me after trading the two pound coin I had with me for Thai Baht from a British travelor in Bangkok. The plan was to start with almost nothing and turn it in to millions! Actually not really, after a confluence of events I ended up temporarily broke. And yes I am in Bangkok, but perhaps I should rewind and reflect a bit on how I got here. There were more disasters on the way since my last post...

In my last post I reflected on a series of misfortune (or mistakes depending on how you look at it). I made it to the airport with just enough time on my second attempt at leaving Africa. British Airways charged me $95 (58 pounds or so) for my second bag, it was ridiculous considering the price and that I was flying across continents but I didn't say anything. But they wanted another $95 for my travel back pack which they said was too big for the overhead space. I got in a big fight with the ticket counter guy, which brought out the manager, who faced a showdown he hadn't reckoned for - I pushed and pulled to get my bag to fit in the stupid box that is supposed to be the "test" for whether a bag is too big. I don't remember the last time someone made me actually do this. One of my rules in life is to follow the spirit of a law, not the letter. Oh wait, or is it actually to just break it? No, as my blog is named, I turn right on red, that's not usually breaking the rule...this manager just wasn't having it.

My bag was missing the box by inches and after taking the manager's name down, he reacted badly and claimed I had "threatened" him. He started taking pictures with his camera and the whole thing erupted into a scene and me probably delaying the whole plane as dozens of passengers watched me throw clothing, sunscreen, and whatever else out of my bag asking the guy "is this enough for you? Is this good?" And after a few articles of clothing it really did fit in the box. My simple rational for what I did is that the clothing was obviously not worth $100, so I actually just threw it in the overfilled tiny trash recepticle at the airport. Keep in mind all of this was after a lengthy shifting of items upon arrival when I was told I was "overweight" (not the first time someone has insulted me so rudely). Thankfully the second bag had room and weight to spare so I avoided that fee. So on to London!

I arrived to the ol' friend Higgsy's in Southwest London and dropped all of my luggage from Africa at about 11:00 the next morning. Higgs asked if I wanted to grab some breakfast. I commented that I should probably check to see what time the Chinese Embassy was open since I still didn't have a Visa for China where I was flying the next day. Turns out the Embassy closes early on a Friday, in fact at noon, one hour later - Great! So we skipped breakfast, dove head first into the chilly although surprising pleasantly crisp London weather, and biked as fast as we could the 30 or so minutes across the river to Central London.

I think the Chinese at the embassy may have actually laughed at me when I broke in sweating and delirious shouting about needing a tourist visa same day. This was one rule and one nationality that don't bend. But when I learned about the 72 hour transit free time you can now do if you don't leave the city of Beijing and are from one of a few dozen countries (USA included!) I decided to not waste my non-refundable non-changeable $900 round-trip ticket to China. I basically pointed at a map and found Thailand. Well not really, but it seems like it's on the list "Stuff White People Like," I knew it was cheap, you didn't need a visa, and it was a nice return to warm weather. So when Swiss Air's first flight from London to Zurich was late and caused me to miss the connection to Beijing, I was pretty pumped to be directly re-routed to Bangkok. Plus I got a bonus day in Zurich, Switzerland, a 5 Euro calling card and meal couchers. Very pretty and clean city, classic Europe, and super expensive ($32 hamburger at the airport for example exceeded my 20 Swiss Franc meal voucher).

Zurich by chilly winter night 

With all of the craziness happening including the theft, missing my Uganda flight and paying several hundred dollars, adding Thailand to an already jam packed itenerary and trying to learn the first thing about the place/decide what to do there, spending about $100 also just to get a taxi to London (London is so $$!), and everything else, I didn't notice that my checking account had actually gone negative. When my luggage was of course lost from Zurich, I also didn't have access to my emergency $100 bill from my bag (to my dismay Swiss Air told me the London-Zurich plane was too small to take my travel bag pack on Board despite the fact that like the Uganda -London plane, there was plenty of space). This is how I ended up with $2.50, which surprisingly can get you three small local type meals in one day in Thailand. But the funny thing about all of this, and others have noticed this too, is that everything ended up fine for me despite all of these challenges. I know my money is coming soon.

So like I said in the beginning, from here it's straight to the top baby!