Explore USC: Day 1 - The Flight, the Hotel, and the Failed Quest to Buy a TAP Card

A photo I took in the shuttle that has nothing to do with this post.

On Wednesday, February 25th, at 2:30 a.m. precisely, a choir of alarm clocks went off in the southern suburbs of Budapest. One after the other, their soft but determined melodies merged into a terrible, buzzing cacophony, and the 18-year-old girl sleeping within striking distance was awoken, reluctantly crawling out of her bed.

Yeah. Basically, I set four alarm clocks just to make sure I didn't miss my flight to LA. Which leads me to...

The news is correct, I have been admitted to the University of Southern California!!!! For real!!! And yes, I know I'm delivering this in a pretty underwhelming way - considering how this is all I've ever wanted - but I promise to write the most enthusiastic post you've ever seen when or if I decide to attend. Because again yes, I have been nominated for a full-tuition scholarship, but the key is the word nominated, and I had to attend an interview that decides my fate  whether I get the money or not. And it was also this interview that ultimately drove me to LA, to this two day program called Explore USC.

 

My acceptance packages that are all over Instagram and Twitter

So, now that we've cleared all that up: the flight. Deciding that one connection was more than enough, I purchased a ticket to LA that was a tiny bit on the expensive side, but only had one occasion of changing planes, at Amsterdam Schiphol. The plane left at 6:30 a.m., so I had the airport shuttle pick me up at 4:00 a.m. - just in case - and I was already at the Budapest Airport by five. I had quite a lot of time left to linger around in duty free, which I spent by aggressively trying to find a WiFi network and sending all my friends a photo of the airplane. Just to make them jealous, y'now.

When I could finally board at 6:05 a.m. (gotta let all those very important Business Class people in front of me, who lo and behold looked less business-y, and more I'm-going-on-vacation-to-Hawaii-hence-I'm-wearing-boardshorts-y) I happily took my well-deserved window seat, next to a slightly grumpy businessman (the tourists took his Business Class seat, no wonder he was upset...) and a guy who enjoyed eating his sandwich more than I thought it was possible for an average human being, and concluded that for once, I would have a peaceful flight. That is, until a family of four with two babies sat right behind me. Typical.

Despite that, as it is, the flight itself was pretty uneventful. I was either staring out of the window, taking pictures, and repeating the words "so cool", or trying to guess what important business deal the grumpy man was trying to negotiate on his iPad the entire time. He seemed pretty invested in it, so I was devastated to find out by the end of the flight that what I thought were the terms a million dollar contract, was in fact Candy Crush. I even shed a tear. But at least by the end of the flight all his grumpiness dissipated and he started playing with the baby behind us, so that's an achievement. We even had a sweet little conversation at Schiphol, which - after spending nearly 45 minutes trying to cross it and almost missing my flight -  I affectionately named the Russia of airports. (Because of its size, get it...)

Half of the pictures I took were taken from the airplane. Just saying.

Now, KLM flight KL1972 from Budapest to Amsterdam is a friendly little plane, if you get what I mean, so when I spotted the gigantic intercontinental Titanic-sized beast that would transport me across the ocean, I did do a double take. Or quadruple. What's even worse that the queue waiting to board was basically longer than an entire moving walkway. I mean, forget businessmen and babies and reserved European passengers, people on this plane were everything from rodeo cowboys to valley girls. Sh*t was getting real.

So, when I booked my seat for this flight, I had two options: book one in the middle row, next to the toilets, or pay 40 Euros for one next to the window (the "Preferred Seat"). I went with the latter one, which ended up providing the perfect opportunity for my seatmate Paschal ("Like the unit of pressure?" "Yes. Thanks for calling me the unit of pressure.") to mock me. In a friendly way, anyway. But more on him in a second. See, the window seat certainly gave a nice view, but it also enclosed me in a sort of bubble from which I couldn't hear a thing, meaning that I couldn't watch a single film (the awful earphones they gave didn't help) and that poor Paschal had to yell at me so that I could hear him. Anyway, back to him: Paschal was a really cool guy from Virginia, who had an affinity for Dracula and tap water, and had spent a couple of months in Russia. He also told me how people in New Orleans with face tattoos get disability benefits, but I've searched online and sadly found no evidence of this being true. So Paschal and I had a lovely, lovely time during this 11-hour flight, dissing airplane food (He got the vegetarian food. I got the vegetarian pasta. There is a difference.), dissing World Business Class passengers, and noticing how the guy next to us was either snoring or downing shots at the bar. And noticing how KLM flights were dominated by male flight attendants (Air France too, as I found out on my way home. And I mean seriously, this was one of the few job positions with a predominantly female presence! My inner feminist is rising!) And noticing how they gave us more food than I usually eat in a week.

This might be Greenland. Or maybe Canada.

Enough about the flights, though! At 11:40 a.m. Los Angeles time (which is 8:40 p.m.  normal Budapest time) I began spotting palm trees. I began spotting snaking highways. I began spotting identical-looking houses - naturally all of them having swimming pools. We were in LA. At 11:45 a.m., we landed at LAX. (And, for the record, no, Miley Cyrus, I didn't just "hop off the plane at LAX". Getting off that plane was a struggle for survival.)

Border control was also a struggle for survival, as the lady there pretty much outright accused me of being an illegal immigrant and attempting to invade her country. And yes, I know it's her job to intimidate me et al, but I can't possibly comprehend why out of all people, she thought a girl with milkmaid braids and a stuffed animal in her hand would threaten US security. But then again, this is border control and I guess you just suck it up and try not to act sketchy. And I ended up being admitted, so all good.

And it's only now that I realize how much I've written, so let's speed up events. Basically, boyfriend Shane was supposed to pick me up at the airport, but he missed his flight from Colorado (verbatim, "I might not be in LA that early, babe, but I'll pick you up. I'll call you after take-off".) Now, kind of counting on him not making it, I asked one of my friends' boyfriend to pick me up as well, just in case, but he thought I was arriving at midnight  not at noon, so he couldn't make it either, and then I called about 5 of my other friends in LA, none of whom were in town, which made me seriously consider whether my arrival in the US was making everyone I know run like a jet stream from the city. Probably.

 

 The Theme Building, which you've seen in all LA tour books

This is LA. 

Yet this revelation didn't help me too much, so I dragged my luggage to the nearest Prime Time Shuttle station, payed $15 and arrived at the Radisson Hotel at USC within 40 minutes. I mean, who needs friends when you have cheap red vans and underpaid drivers? It was a bit early for me to check-in, so I dropped off my luggage and used the free hotel WiFi to send all my friends pictures of the LA palm trees. Just to notify them of my safe arrival. And of course to make them jealous.

My room at the Radisson was pretty cool. Except for my view. That was a parking structure.

After getting 45 questions on whether I was jet-lagged, and answering "No, not at all, jet-lag doesn't work on me" 45 times, I went on a quest to find the nearest Expo station and buy a TAP card (LA version of an Oyster card or whatever they call it where you live, unless you're Hungarian, because then you get an ugly piece of purple paper that no longer fits into your pass case). Needless to say, despite having a printed map and asking 5 different people, I failed miserably. On top of all that, by the time I got my room keys and took a shower, it was already 4 p.m., and since I didn't want to get back in the dark and the trip to Venice Beach would have taken 4 hours total, I had to cut that program from my schedule. Yep. Deep disappointment. No artsy pics of roller coasters and Ferris wheels for Layra.

Instead, I put my pajamas on, switched on the TV and tried to find Trojan Visions (the USC TV channel), failed at that too, hung the "DO NOT DISTURB" sign on the doorknob, set my four alarm clocks, and fell asleep at 5 p.m.. Day over.

(When I woke up, I was fresh and ready to start the next day. I glanced at the clock and it was only 7 p.m. Maybe I was jet-lagged, after all.)

TO BE CONTINUED WITH DAY 2. 
It won't be this long. I promise. Or not.