If everybody passing by on the street smiles at you, there are two possible explanations: you are in trouble ( XYZ PDQ! ) or you are in the U.S. Oops! I came up with another cause — you are PRINCE/SS CHARMING!!! It was the initial thought on my first day in Milwaukee.

Walking along the Wisconsin Ave as the maiden voyage, I was rather surprised to find EVERYBODY SMILED AT ME!!! Having made sure I was dressing perfectly, I relaxed and started to ponder the reason. I knew most people here are quite easy-going — they’d like to give you a hand whenever possible (no wonder Americans don’t hesitate to ask the so-called “silly questions” — there are always people patient enough to answer them). But I never expected they would smile and say hi to every stranger on the street. How come?

Later on I figured it out. They don’t smile at every stranger but me. Hehe… Guess what? Because I stared at everybody walking towards and forced them to greet reciprocally. *^^*

It was such a long trip that I even started to suspect I would have to spend the rest of my life on the airplane, or… at the airport. Wuhan — Shanghai — San Francisco — Chicago — Milwaukee. I am still alive.

The journey told me one thing — I can beat time!!! I started off from Shanghai at 12:55 pm and flew ahead of time to arrive at S.F. at about 8 amo. Gee! I stole 5 hours from God! Waitwaitwait… it was way too early to cheer for the victory.

In the following six hours I was taught a good lesson about the usage of letter Q. Our flight queued for arrival; I queued for SEVIS; I queued for UA staffs to process my missed flights… It turned out I spent one more extra hour for the five hours I stole from God. Anyway, it was not too bad that at least the only thing I didn’t have to queue for was queue itself. I had learned so much about Q. My only question was — when would the lesson for R(EST) start???

The lesson for R began at 7:45 pm at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Unfortunately, it was not REST but RESTART. My sense of direction was ruthlessly challenged by the layout of O’Hare. What a labyrinth! I was curious about how more than 190,000 smart travelers make O’Hare their airport of choice every day and how those passengers find their way out. Maybe I was the 190,001st???