In the last 6 weeks, I've done quite a bit of traveling. I'm sure you all remember that I got stuck in Barcelona (how could you forget?!). Here are a couple more stories to entertain you:
Coming home for Christmas, I had a relatively simple flight plan. I was supposed to fly from Edinburgh to Paris, and from there to Chicago. Boy, was I wrong to be optimistic. Since my flight was at 6:10 AM and I had to leave for the airport at 3:30 AM, I just decided to stay up and then sleep on the plane. My first flight, however, was delayed...and then delayed some more....until I finally went down to rebook because there was no way I was going to make my flight to Chicago. After standing in line for over 2 hours, I got rebooked on the same flight to Paris, where I would then go to Detroit and then Chicago. Alright, fine, I can deal with that. It got be in about 7 hours later then I had initially planned on, but I was happy to be getting home that day.
The lady next to me on the plane, however, destroyed any shred of metaphorical shining light that I had left. For the first half of the flight she openly bemoaned the fact that I was sitting next to her -- she wanted to sleep, after all, and she couldn't do that unless she had an empty seat next to her. Alright, cue the ear phones. Time to watch a movie and drown her out. Nay. The woman then proceeded to dry heave into an airplane bag for the next oh, 3 hours. The real kicker? She refused to go to the bathroom. So for the last half of my flight I was periodically diving into the aisle every time she gagged, which would then be followed with me asking, "Are you SURE you don't want to go to the bathroom?" Seriously folks, if you have the option to throw up in the bathroom, TAKE IT! This also prevented me from being able to sleep more than a half hour, which was a bit problematic since I had stayed up the night before. By the time I landed in Chicago, I hadn't slept for going on 36 hours. I was a bit delirious, to say the least.
Oh, did I mention that my flight from Detroit to Chicago was delayed an hour? At this point, that was a drop in the bucket. I finally made it home, albeit a little bit later then planned. When I saw my dad at the airport, it didn't even matter that it took me longer to get home. I was just so happy to see him!
On to today...
I decided to come back to Edinburgh a little bit early so I could experience New Years Eve there. They're supposed to do it up right. There is a huge outdoor street party, a torchlight procession to Calton Hill, fireworks off the castle...the whole works. I figured that as long as I'm spending the year here, I might as well take advantage of all the city has to offer. Did I mention that I have some very dear friends coming to celebrate with me? Elizabeth is flying up from London, and Alexis is coming in from Florida. I am beyond excited to see them both, which makes my long layover in Paris all the more frustrating.
We had our itineraries timed out perfectly. I was to get into Edinburgh at 8:20, Elizabeth at 8:25, and Alexis at 8:40. We synchronized our plans, which was clearly a foolish thing for me to do. My flight from Chicago to Cincinnati was delayed, although the time was made up in the air. My flight from Cincinnati to Paris was delayed an hour, and yet we somehow lost time in the air. Add to that the fact that some guy took my nice, lovely window seat. When I told him he was in my seat, he said, "Does it really matter?" Umm...YES! But it was clear from his tone that he was going to make a big deal of it, thus making me seem like the jerk, so I took his stupid aisle seat instead.
I finally got into Paris -- about30 minutes after my flight to Edinburgh took off without me. Compared to the Barcelona fiasco and the vomit-to-Detroit flight, this is not so bad. I was able to get rebooked for a 3:25 flight this afternoon. The only issue remaining? I am of course providing housing to Elizabeth and Alexis, and both are enroute to Edinburgh as I write this. Here's hoping they find something fun to do in the airport!
I have about 6 1/2 hours until my flight, so let's face it...I'll probably blog again later! Peace.
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