The sheep who went up a lift and came down an elevator

Funny place, this America.  I suppose arriving on Thanksgiving (when every good citizen is meant to be inviting Native Americans into his/her home and stealing their poultry and cereal crops) wasn't the best way to get on the right side of the immigration and customs guys, and Julian (the clumsy Development Director who is accompanying me as my bag-carrier on this trip) made a stupid comment about how they must have "drawn the short straw" which didn't enamour them to him particularly.  Nevertheless, the suggestion that he was "importing livestock" by having me in his briefcase seemed rather insensitive and I am thinking of making a formal complaint.

The hotel is very impressive.   Lots of glass and mahogany and a lift, which they call an elevator, that only stops at the 5th floor and then the 27th, 28th and 29th.  We are on the 29th.  I suppose the poor people are meant to walk up to the other floors.   The view is rather like standing at the top of Consty and looking down at Aber - except that it's a lot higher and there is a lot more of Boston than there is of Aber and I can't see the sea. 

The staff seem to have had a bad time recently because everyone keeps wishing that I have a nice day which is optimistic at least.   I'm looking forward to tomorrow when it won't be a holiday so I won't feel so guilty needing to be served.  Having a reception in Cambridge, Mass and have discovered that the whole of the sabbatical team from the Union in Aber are in Boston as well at the moment so we'll have a few more turning up and drinking Julian's booze.

Julian, by the way, is insufferable.  It is now thirty hours since he has had a cigarette and there is no sign of his temper improving.  Lying awake with jetlag last night, he cursed incessantly and began to wonder aloud what my wool would taste like rolled up in a page of Gideon's Bible and smoked!

A suffocating start

Well, not quite the start I was looking for.  Here I am, about to travel the world, meeting other Aber graduates and hearing their stories of what they've been doing.  I thought at the least I'd get a window seat, but instead this oaf of a Development Director has stuffed me into his laptop case, wedged between his camera and the power cable.  It's dark, hot and smells suspiciously of mint - he must be trying to give up smoking again.

In any case, let me introduce myself:  Baabaa Wooliams is the name, Ambassador Plenipotentiary for Aberystwyth University, taking the light of mid-Welsh civilisation to the far corners of the world.  On this trip, across the USA, down to Australia (where I naturally have a lot of cousins), then the Far East before swinging back via Dubai to good old Aber.

If I'm ever let out of this case, I shall share my adventures, comment on the strange and the wonderful that I encounter, bring you news of Aber grads far and wide, and philosophize on the nature of man and sheep.  Ewe'll never have read anything like it.

Next stop Boston!