Friday, February 6, 2009

Writing my journals on barf-bags

As some of you know, I set out on Tuesday morning from Barcelona, to fly to San Francisco. Somehow, though, everything went wrong. Not bad, really, seeing as I never found the chance to grumble, but, just wrong. Funny thing is, I made lots of friends (as tends to happen when you are in line with the same people for almost 2 hours, and you keep bumping in to each other on random check ins, flights, airports, etc.), and actually enjoyed myself~

My oh-so original note title comes from the source of my inspiration... barf bags. Where else are you supposed to find something to write on in an airplane? And, I remembered that a good friend of mine writes letters to people on the airplane, on barf bags. Smart idea. So, I wanted to write letters of my own. However, I ended up with enough journal-novel material to last me for a few chapters, and I ran out of barf-bags way before I was done.

Have you ever asked the people sitting next to you if you can have their barf bags? pretty amusing reactions. Especially when the realize that you are NOT going to throw up all over yourself and them. They actually become interested in your cutrious little hobbies and odd ideas...

Anyways, here is the extremely short summary of what happened over the last 50 hours (that is how long it took us, instead of a normal 20):

we left the house at 6am Tuesday. checked in to BCN, boarded plane, waited in plane for 4 hours because of a mechanical error. got ushered off plane. waited another hour. were told that the silly bolt they needed to make the p-lane fly had to come from the States. made friends while waiting in line for over an hour and a half. got shipped off to a hotel with everyone else. were told that it would hopefully fly out at the same time the next morning.

got a call in the middle of the night, telling us that, in order to make our conneciton to SFO, we had to get on a different flight with a different airline.
next morning, got to the aiport, tried to check in with Continental, who sent us to the Continental desk thingy, who told us to go aaaalll the way to the American desk, two terminals down.
2 hours later and a lot of badgering incompetent slobs behind the desk, and we tried to check in again at Continental--now 10 mins before boarding, and we still had to check bags and go through security and reach the faroff gate.
when we looked at the tags on our bags, we saw that it only said that they were going to Newark (forget JFK, that was in the past, they told us), not all the way TO SFO. the incompetent, lying sack of Siberian snakes behind the counter told us that there WAS no flight from Newark to SFO. Ever. With anyone. So, she told us to deal with it when we got to Newark.
then, we reached the gate (we RAN, in boots, with carryons, and purses, and coats...), found our friends (we all got shipped onto the Continental flight together), boarded, sayt down, took off, and reached Newark.
Ok, Newark, New Jersey ( I got to see the Statue of Liberty as we circled over NY! She's small...)
we get off, grab our bags, run to the Continental internation transfer desk.
they tell us that we do have seats for the SFO flight (that the lady in Bcn told us didn't even EXIST), but, that they are both in my name. The incompetent lady at Bcn had booked the first flight in Mom's name, and the second in mine. Now, however is THAT going to help, I ask you?
so, we had to run to American, two terminals away, to get that straightened out.
then run baaack to the Continental terminal to check our bags in again.
and then they couldn't figure out HOW to check our bags in...
*sigh*
by this time, we had 20 mins to get up, through security, and reach our gate
but, somehow, we made it
somehow...
well, my sore legs today tell me that it was because we ran as fast as only rate people can


Even so, I am extremely thankful to ahve reached CA safe and sound, and with our BAGS!! I won't even go in to our adventures running around the SFO airport looking for a plug converter and an alarm clock... Not now, not now... And, I have another 2 houra before jetlag kicks in~ Good thing I kept myself awake till 3 or 4 the week before we left.... now I get another couple hours of awake-ness before my brain tries to shut off... we shall see :)

PS-- NEVER. EVER. EVER. NEVER. EVER let someone who drops you off at the airport pray for you to have "a safe and exciting trip" We saw where that got us...

1 comment:

Tay said...

annalisa, what an amazing story. nice idea for barf bags....where'd you get that one??? :)