October 22, 23, and 24: Rene (my father) was very willing to drive me to the International Terminal or at least to O'Hare in general, but the traffic was horrendous. So instead he dropped me downtown at the blue line, and I took the train to the airport. The train ride went OK, as did the walk from the CTA, the O'Hare toy train ride, and the final hike to the international terminal. The lines were absurd. Very long. Competition for position in line. People are not happy about the lines, and try to cut ahead. The ticketing line was worse than security, but not by much. The plane was delayed for some medical reason. They came directly to my seat and asked me to get up. Checking around the base of the seat. They didn't find anything. I assume they were looking for a lost inhaler or some-such, but we never found out. They made up the lost time, and landed fine and on time but only on the tarmac. To get to the gate required a bus, and the process took longer than I would have thought. Luck would have it that any rushing was unnecessary. My connecting flight to Madagascar was delay by an hour -- time which we did not make up, and so getting through customs, meaning buying a visa, filling in forms and saying I had nothing to declare brought us only to 1am or so. Note the "nothing to declare" part. That'll get interesting in a minute or so. Some of you are probably already cringing. I have made two real mistakes on this trip, so far. The first was assuming that malaria was in the bush, not downtown. The bathroom in the airport (the objective of my mad dash through customs) was swarming with mosquitoes. It's 7:32 PM, and I hear a call to prayer or other Islamic cantor (wrong word, I know) out my window. Not sure if it's from a mosque or just somebody's stereo. I guess I'll know at 7:32 tomorrow. So about the pills. I'm two days behind in taking them. Should have started them in Chicago. "Take two days before entering infested area." OK, full disclosure. I only have 30 days supply. I need to take them seven days after I get home, and I wanted to believe that I'd only need them for a fragment of the trip, mostly because I didn't want to go and get MORE. Wrong, Bucko. As I type this, I spot a little bugger in my room. Actually, she's really quite large. I'm squishing the life out of her. (Just checking the spot she made on the wall to see if there's any of my life in her... Looks like not.) I have not yet prepared a bug killer outfit with Rene's magic bug-death juice. This because A. I'd have to do all my long sleeve shirts, B. I'm exhausted. During the day, today, anyhow. Took a noon nap and am fighting going to bed now to get onto a regular schedule. I'll sleep around 10. It gets dark, here, for real. Less lights and time zone magic mean that at 6:30 it's dark and at 1am it's pitch black. The power goes out at 5:30 in some sections of the city for upwards of an hour. The power company has troubles. Financial, technical, or political, I don't know, but the blackouts are every day. There are none in the older part of the city, though, where the palace is. (More on the queen and her architecture later.) I suspect that SALFA, in the no-blackout zone, is benefiting from the proximity of both the palace and the presidential manor -- a big, white house. OK, mistake number two. Declaring on entry (I'm realizing in hindsight), means not having to pay taxes on what you have when you LEAVE. I have a lot of cash and a lot of tech junk. I brought it in legitimately, and will leave with it. Will I have to pay fines? I may need the help of my hosts to get out of this one. The way it happened was this: I saw a long line at the declaration table, and went to the nothing to declare guy whom I asked "What do you declare? How would I know if I have something to declare?" After a moment's pause to think, he just waved me through. Now I think that he was just not sure what I was saying and didn't want to deal with English, and that I may be a little screwed. We shall see. Better that than malaria. I am taking my pills now, every morning, like clockwork, with breakfast. Breakfast, like lunch and dinner, is made by the cook in this palace, and she's very good. I am having trouble convincing her of two things: 1. This, Honorine, is too much food. 2. Honorine, can you make me Malagasy food, please? Just whatever YOU have for dinner. I can eat American food anywhere in America. (Though I admit her food is better than most in America.) She assures me what she's having for dinner tomorrow is pizza. Paul