XL messages me from the caracas airport in the late morning, on her way back to china for a 3 week vacation. the flight - via paris - will take 30 hours before finally arriving in shanghai. she was leaving with 4 other coworkers (probably the same ones that came with her to venezuela 4 months ago). she said the airport wasn't very crowded, but the one interesting thing was how many chinese nationals there were, engineers and contractors in the country from various chinese-funded construction projects, all on their way home.

it rained for most of the day until the afternoon. i didn't go anywhere, just stayed home listening to a history podcast on genghis khan. at 5:30 i left the house and biked down to koreana (8 minutes), where i met my parents and my 2nd aunt for dinner. the primary reason for going was that my aunt had never been there before, but she wasn't too impressed with the food, thought it was too bland. the waitress kept coming to our table every 5 minutes to make sure the gas was turned off, either afraid we'd secretly turn it on ourselves or just forgetting she'd already shut it.

coming home, i found an ikea salad spinner somebody had thrown out. i watched the premiere of the 2nd season of true detective; intrigued for the time being, even though i'm beginning to realize that nic pizzolatto is kind of a pompous writer who enjoys hearing himself sound important and deep when his stories have neither of these qualities. i also saw episode 6 of jonathan strange and mr.norrell (downloaded from abroad since the show is only just starting in the US); can't believe the series finale is next week.