I dreaded waking up between three and four o’clock in the morning - sometimes mind crystal clear, body inert; sometimes the other way around. I wonder if people taking the superduper business first class, with a dentist chair-like device bestowed upon them, have this problem too. Jet lag. Jet lag. Jet lag.

Today I may have found the key to conquer the problem - keywords: iphone app.

So from four to I think nine, I spent five hours, setting up the itune store, fiddling with them not accepting a Chinese credit card,  looking at various apps, download, and played. The first one was Yelp, the restaurant reviews scattered on a map, then skype, then ice cream cone maker, bubble popper, color filler, then medical dictionary, then a thing that broadcast the fire department radio reception from around the world! Absolutely mesmerizing, and absolutely engaging. And I downloaded two bus schedule applications that will tell me how many minutes away a bus is coming.

I didn’t get out of the door till almost two, but I found the currency exchange, I learned them to be “checks cashed” place, and got myself a seven-day CTA bus, for 23 dollars.   The 21 Cermak bus landed beautifully at main entrance of the convention center, and the checkout line was zero. I did later took the metra, in the wrong direction, to South Chicago 55, 56, 57 street, and had to waited for 45 min there to catch a train back, to meet B at Randolph and Michigan.

Having seen B for five years, but it didn’t show. The conversation picked up right away and we talked talked talked, first over dinner, then coffee. If it were not that she has to catch the 9:45 train to suburb, we could talk for ever.

And on the way back from the pink line stop, I was so scared that I lost track of direction, and walked an extra two blocks. What am I scared off?

Tonight, if I get up at four, I will install those apps in my blackberry.