Made it to Toledo

Having lived in the Midwest for my first thirteen years, and spent some time here since then visiting relatives, I can see some attractive features of the area. But Toledo has none of these. As a fellow student from Athens, OH said; "Toledo has everything bad that goes along with being a big city, but none of the good." And she's an Ohio native. At least it's so cold, there's very little air pollution.

The trip here was horrible. First, the signs were confusing and I went through the wrong security gate, so I had a mile plus race around the airport hoping to get a standby seat on my flight. America West checked my bags to Toledo but couldn't find me a seat at the gate since the flight was oversold. No wonder I couldn't get a seat reserved online even a month ago. At the gate they finally decided to book me a flight with Continental that had one stop instead of two. It left an hour later, had a four hour lay-over in Cleveland, and still arrived a hour earlier than my original flight. Oh, and they gave me a free round trip ticket as compensation. That made up for several of the other little hassles like having to take a bus to another terminal, walking another mile and going through another security line.

Once I got to Toledo things got worse. The last leg of my original Delta flight, Cincinnati to Toledo, had been canceled. So my baggage was stuck in Cincinnati. However, my claim tickets were America West numbers. To sum up to confusion, I had American West bags in a Delta terminal but Continental was responsible for getting them to me now that I had flown in with them. And it wasn't easy finding anyone with a clue at 10pm in the little Toledo airport. Before taking a limo/taxi to the hospital I had assurances my baggage would be delivered to me the following day.

I finally made it to St. Vincent's hospital, picked up my housing information, badges and pager in the ER and headed for bed just after midnight. It had been a very stressful day. At least all the airport and airline personnel were nice. Even the majority of passengers were able to maintain a positive attitude.

Yesterday the bags arrived as promised. And nothing was broken or damaged! I went through my orientations, but then had the rest of the yesterday and today to wait around. I managed to get signed up for a couple extra shifts. So with 11 8-hour ER shifts, two EMS (ambulance) 8-hour shifts, two 8-hour procedure shifts and a bunch of didactics (from both the Peds and ER departments) my schedule is looking ok. Add in some Peds study time on my own and I hope to keep from getting too lonely and bored. There's nothing but crime in walking distance. I live in a 50-year old cell. And the place is almost vacant with only two other students in the "home away from home" dormitory.

The Admin said the place will be full in March, so I guess the storms are waiting for them this year. Toldeo hasn't had a snowflake so far this year. I just hope that doesn't mean I'm going to be grounded from one of my upcoming flights. At least I brought a bunch of pleasure and medical books. The free ticket will more than cover the overweight charge on my baggage and the shipping fee on the UPS box I shipped. As you can probably guess, I don't have a lot of practice packing for a two month trip to a different climate.

The people here are pretty nice considering. As my limo/taxi driver said; "if you don't drink and baseball season is over there isn't anything to do but work."

I finished a Sci-Fi book entitled Seeker yesterday about an Indiana Jones character in the far future. Very well written. I started Neverwhere today, but am not sure when I'll get it finished since I have to start studying Peds very soon. At least I finished one good pleasure book over the break.