How not to arrive in a foreign country

In the midde of the night, 3 hours late due to electrical storms, not having slept in 24 hours and, crucially, with some faith in the reliability of the British Council. This last one was the real killer. Some shmuck was supposed to pick me up at the airport but obviously couldn´t be arsed to ahng around and wait on the flight so i had to get ripped off changing dollars at the airport, then jump in a taxi to the hotel the B.C told us to go to. Of course, the airport people gave me the worng address so the taxi driver says the B.C hotel doesn´t exist, and will he take me to another one? This is such a classic scam, but what are you supposed to do if you don´t even have the address of the place, so he takes me to some overpriced hotel where i was robbed of $100 for a pishy wee room, and THEN i couldn´t sleep at all last night from beating myself up about being such a tourist idiot and letting myself get ripped off. GAH!

However, it´s probably best to get this kind of thing out of the way at the start, at least things can only get better from here on in, although the stupid British Council people have probably conspired so that i´ll have to pay for last night at the other hotel too, even though i wasn´t there. Sigh.

And there weren´t even any Twinkies on sale in Newark! Though i did sit next to some charming hillbilly newlyweds from a tiny town outside Kansas City on the plane from London to Newark and discussed the best way to cook squirrels, what catfish tastes like and how much better stuff tastes when it´s been deep fried.