I Have a Research Support System

After the exchange between the two, Wei Xingsi asked, What time do you fly to Phoenix tomorrow?

Xu Qiu took out his mobile phone, checked the ticket information, and responded: The departure time is 8:35 in the morning, and the landing time is about 10:15. The flight time... is one hour and forty minutes.

Wei Xingsi let out a huh, then took out a one-dollar bill from his wallet, and handed it to Xu Qiu: Go to the hotel reception and book a taxi for tomorrow morning, otherwise, if you call a taxi at that time, you may not be able to call it. It may delay your trip.

Okay. Xu Qiu went to the front desk to book a taxi at 6:30, and gave a tip of one dollar to a white lady at the front desk.

In fact, most hotels in the beautiful country cooperate with specific taxi companies. The front desk can get a commission for calling a taxi, so it is usually okay not to tip them.

However, if guests are willing to tip, the hotel front desk will most likely tend to do things better.

After booking the car, Xu Qiu made an appointment with Han Jiaying and Wu Feifei to wake up at 6:00 tomorrow morning and leave for the airport on time at 6:30.

For the next trip, Wei Xingsi will go to the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in Santa Barbara, California for an exchange visit. The object of the visit is Bazan, a leader in the field of organic conjugated polymer materials.

Bazan's research group is not only doing organic photovoltaics, but also researching photodetectors, organic field effect transistors, etc.

Santa Barbara is only about 150 kilometers away from Los Angeles. Whether it is by bus or train, it is more convenient. Wei Xingsi can even rent a car and drive himself. He has a beautiful green card and driver's license.

People who live in the beautiful country all year round, including some international students, usually buy cars here, because the public transportation in the beautiful country is relatively backward, and taxis are too expensive, and they basically drive by themselves.

For example, Wu Xi, Xu Qiu’s deskmate in high school, went to the Michigan College of Jiaotong University in Shanghai for the college entrance examination. The JI of Jiaotong University is equivalent to the joint training of two universities. In the junior and senior years, I studied at the University of Michigan in the beautiful country.

As soon as Wu Xi arrived in the beautiful country in his junior year, he picked up a car and posted it on Moments.

Later, when a cold wave broke out in the beautiful country, Xu Qiu once again saw a picture of a snow-covered car posted by Wu Xi in Moments, accompanied by a complaint: The car is frozen to death.

Wei Xingsi was going to UCSB, and Xu Qiu and the others were going to Phoenix to attend the MRS meeting.

Although Arizona, where Phoenix is ​​located, and California, where Los Angeles is located, are two adjacent states, the distance between the two cities is still relatively far, about 600 kilometers.

If it is in China, it is 600 kilometers, which is almost half of the distance from Beijing to Shanghai. If you take the high-speed rail, you can get there in four to five hours at the fastest.

However, the domestic railway construction in the beautiful country is not perfect, and the means of travel that are usually used for interstate travel are self-driving cars or airplanes. Obviously, Xu Qiu and the others cannot drive by themselves, so they can only choose to take a plane.

At night, everyone went to bed early, and they turned off the lights and went to bed around ten o'clock.

Although he went to bed early, Xu Qiu woke up intermittently many times in the middle, and then at five o'clock the next morning, he couldn't fall asleep anymore.

Going abroad for the first time, jet lag is a thing, and it will be difficult to adapt to it for a while.

Since he couldn't fall asleep, Xu Qiu decided not to. He didn't turn on the light, and got out of bed lightly, intending to wash up briefly.

Although he didn't make any big noise, Wei Xingsi still woke up.

Wei Xingsi's condition seems to be okay, perhaps because he often travels abroad and is used to jet lag.

The two washed up one after another, planning to solve the problem of breakfast.

The beautiful country here is not like in the country in the morning. There are no breakfast stalls such as bun shops around, and the restaurants downstairs are not open.

It is said that there will also be breakfast stalls selling hot dogs, rolls, etc., but it is difficult to find them, and it may take several blocks. In China, basically there are several breakfast shops under every residential building.

Fortunately, Xu Qiu came prepared. He made a bowl of instant noodles, and made another bowl for Wei Xingsi.

Soon, the aroma of instant noodles permeated the entire room.

Three minutes later, the two transferred the soaked instant noodles to the coffee table and started eating.

Wei Xingsi picked up a fork of noodles, took a sip, and said:

Participating in the MRS conference this time is mainly to bring you here to learn a lot. Since you plan to take the road of scientific research, you need to know more about this circle.

Actually, when it comes to the research results in the field of organic photovoltaics, other speakers are likely to be inferior to you. Therefore, you don't need to listen to too many reports. Pick the important ones, and listen to more than a dozen sessions.

Wei Xingsi smiled, and continued; After all, it's hard to come to the beautiful country. You can also choose a day to go around Phoenix City. There are still many attractions there.

Oh, okay. Xu Qiu didn't expect Wei Xingsi to be so magnanimous. Originally, he intended to sneak out to play, but now that Wei Xingsi took the initiative to point it out, he didn't know how to respond.

This is also good, after that they can catch fish openly, without needing to paddle in a sneaky way.

After eating instant noodles, we have to dispose of garbage.

The requirements for garbage disposal in the beautiful country are not as perverted as in the neon country. Just like in China, the normal dry and wet separation, flush the instant noodle soup down the toilet, and throw the instant noodle shell into the trash can.

It was a quarter past five, and Xu Qiu tried to send a message to Han Jiaying, only to find that they all woke up early.

At this time, they were washing up, and they also made the same choice as Xu Qiu, eating instant noodles and eight-treasure porridge.

Leave at 6:30, don't be late. Xu Qiu told the junior girl, and then went to the hotel front desk to confirm the status of the taxi reserved before.

Xu Qiu found out that there was a replacement at the front desk. It was a Caucasian guy, but the other party had already got the news from his colleague.

After Xu Qiu's inquiry, the Caucasian boy gave an affirmative answer: The taxi will be at the hotel gate before 6:30.

To be honest, Xu Qiu is somewhat blind to Wai Nuo Kern. If the front desk hadn't changed gender this time, he probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Returning to the hotel again, Xu Qiu lay down and rested for a while.

At around 6:20, the three of Xu Qiu gathered to say goodbye to Wei Xingsi.

Xu Qiu found that both Wu Feifei and Han Jiaying had simple makeup on, but they could still see obvious dark circles. I wonder if they didn't have a good rest last night, and there was also an in-depth exchange between women?

The three of them walked out of the hotel door with their luggage. At this time, the sky outside was already bright, and the reserved taxi stopped at the door of the hotel.

The driver is a black guy.

This black guy doesn't talk much, seeing that Xu Qiu and the others guarded their luggage very tightly, and didn't offer to help carry the luggage, he might be an honest and honest type of black guy.

Without a word all the way, we arrived at the airport very smoothly.

This time, it is a short-distance flight in the beautiful country. The air ticket price is relatively cheap. The price including tax is only 60 US dollars, and the tax rate is about 30%.

But when he arrived at the airport, Xu Qiu realized that although the air ticket was relatively cheap, there was actually a trick——

There is a charge for checked luggage, and it is very expensive!

For example, it costs $25 to check one piece of luggage, and $60 to check two pieces of luggage.

Also, airlines have size and weight limits for each piece of luggage.

The weight of a single piece of luggage must not exceed 50 pounds, and additional fees will be charged for overweight and oversize.

If you check two ordinary pieces of luggage, the cost of checking the luggage alone will catch up with the price of the air ticket.

Sure enough, there is no free lunch in the world, the price that should be paid will always be paid, the only difference is that the form of payment is different.

For example, most flights are not full of people, and there are still some people who bought tickets and changed them temporarily or simply did not board the plane. Therefore, whether it is domestic or foreign, air tickets are usually oversold and overissued.

If you buy early, you may encounter cheap air tickets, but if you buy late, the air tickets are usually more expensive.

If someone buys a cheap ticket first, and later someone is willing to pay an excess price to buy an overissued ticket, there may be a situation where the number of passengers is greater than the number of seats when boarding the plane...

It is reported that in such a situation, the airlines of the beautiful country will even please the passengers who have bought cheap air tickets and boarded the plane directly.

Capital is like this, if you have money, you are a master, if you have no money...

In addition to paying an additional 25 US dollars per person for checked baggage, the other procedures are not much different from those of domestic flights.

After boarding the plane, the three found their seats and sat down.

This time the plane was a small plane, smaller than the plane Xu Qiu took in China before.

For economy class, there is an aisle in the middle, with two seats on the left and two on the left, and a row of four seats in total.

Taking this kind of plane actually feels almost like taking a bus.

However, you get what you pay for.

take off……

After running smoothly, the auntie stewardesses pushed the car out to work.

I don’t know if it’s just an example, or it’s because “old” stewardesses are popular in beautiful countries, or the salary of flight attendants in beautiful countries is not high, and there are no white girls in beautiful countries.

During the two flights, the average age of the beautiful flight attendants Xu Qiu met was 30+, and some flight attendants seemed to be 40+...

There is no in-flight meal on the plane, only one drink is provided, and the variety is relatively small, only juice, cola, and coffee.

Because the total flight time is relatively short, the plane climbed up, and not long after entering the stable flight stage, it began to descend and was ready to land.

Finally, at the beginning of ten o'clock in the morning, the three of Xu Qiu arrived at Phoenix Airport.

As soon as I got off the plane, a hot breath came over my face.

Han Jiaying raised one hand above her head to shade her head, and put the other hand in front of her pair of Ds: Huh—it's so hot~

Xu Qiu turned on the portable WIFI, refreshed the phone network and location, and looked at the weather forecast: Today's highest temperature in Phoenix... 38 degrees Celsius!

Han Jiaying was surprised and said, That's an exaggeration. Fortunately, I brought sunscreen and an umbrella, but they are all in the suitcase.

Xu Qiu gave a hmm and responded: Go to the hotel and take them out. It's still in the morning and it's only 30 degrees Celsius. It is estimated that it will be the hottest at one or two o'clock in the noon. We should try to avoid it at that time as much as possible in the future. Go out.

He was also a little surprised. When he checked the information of Phoenix City on the Internet, he only knew that this place is a desert and the climate is relatively hot, but he didn't expect it to be so exaggerated. It's April now. If it's summer, it won't be too hot to kill me...

The weather now can catch up with the hottest days in Shanghai every day.

The three went to the luggage carousel to pick up their luggage, left the airport in Phoenix, and were about to go to the Hilton Hotel where they stayed next to the MRS Convention and Exhibition Center. They faced the problem of taking a taxi again.

Xu Qiu originally planned to go back to the airport service desk for help.

At this time, he suddenly saw a special taxi stand next to the airport, and walked there with Han Jiaying and Wu Feifei.

Then, they found that they could queue up to take a taxi here, which was similar to the special taxi pick-up points at domestic airports, but there were not many people in line.

Moreover, the people who lined up seemed to be tourists.

Xu Qiu reckoned that there was a similar passage at the airport in Los Angeles before, but for some reason, Wei Xingsi did not choose to take a car there, but called for a car by himself.

However, considering that it would be too troublesome to go back to the airport to seek help, Xu Qiu discussed with Han Jiaying and Wu Feifei and chose to wait in line at the passage.

Not long after, a yellow taxi stopped in front of Xu Qiu and the others, and the driver was a black guy.

The taxi drivers I encountered three times were all black guys. Xu Qiu didn't know if it was an exception, or if the taxi industry in the beautiful country had been monopolized by the black guys.

After declining my brother's request to carry luggage, Xu Qiu got into the car and sat in the co-pilot, while Han Jiaying and Wu Feifei sat in the back row.

Before getting into the car, Xu Qiu kept an eye out and asked Han Jiaying to navigate with the map to record their trajectories.

Black brother: Where are you going?

Xu Qiu: MRS Exhibition Center, located on 2nd St...

Black guy: OK, OK. (Got it, got it.)

This black guy is more talkative, chatting with Xu Qiu all the way, driving the same way as the black guy he met for the first time, rather wild, with one hand on the car window.

After learning that Xu Qiu and the others are here for a meeting and will stay for several days, the black brother enthusiastically handed Xu Qiu a business card and said, If you still need a car in the future, you can call directly I.

Xu Qiu casually put the business card in his pocket: OK, OK... (Definitely, next time.)

There are no tall buildings along the way, there are not many cars on the road, and there are occasional uneven potholes on the road. Some of the indicator lines on the road have faded, and it feels like driving in a domestic town.

However, when the taxi arrived near the MRS Convention and Exhibition Center, it began to become much more prosperous, which was completely different from the rural customs along the way. There were high-rise buildings everywhere, and hotels of various world-renowned brands gathered around MRS. Exhibition Center.

In the end, the taxi stopped in front of the Hilton Hotel they reserved.

Xu Qiu glanced at the tax-included fare on the meter, which was 42.2 U.S. dollars. After mental calculation, he took out a 100 U.S. dollar bill from his wallet, and said to the black brother, I'll pay you 50 U.S. dollars.

The black brother was stunned, probably calculating the tip ratio in his mind, and after a full ten seconds, he said with a smile on his face, OK, OK.