Airport Adventures, June 22 -- rather, 22 June or 22/06/06
The line for Qantas check-in was very long, and I knew I was a little too early to check in, but I figured it would take ages to make it up front. When it was finally my turn, I was informed it was too early for my flight -- "Oh wait, it's exactly 7:50, so it should open any minute...oh yes, here we go!" So I was officially the first person to check in for my flight O:-). For the first time, I was "randomly selected" to be scanned for explosives after clearing security. I walked through the shops and circled the airport, resisting the urge to spend my last $5 bill on chocolate O:-). I had $7 left in coins, and I bought a Two Up set for $6.95. Patrick, the WonderBus tour guide, told us about the game during the bus ride to the Blue Mountains as he described ANZAC Day :-)
The Qantas flight was uneventful, except I did have a nice elderly man sitting on one side of me, and a group leader from People to People on the other side.
When I arrived at LAX, I had to pass through the initial customs screening, get my checked luggage, go to a customs officer who hardly even read my form, and recheck my luggage at a station to be sent along on my flight to Dulles. When I arrived at the terminal for United, I saw on the Departures board that my flight had been cancelled!! I was so frustrated initially because I had only slept about 5 of the last who-knows-how-many hours. A woman directed me to the "Additional Services" line, where I stood for over 2 hours. For the first 10 minutes in line, I was so upset and held in tears -- I was so sleepy and just wanted to get home. A nice woman in front of me let me use her cell to call mom and let her know I wouldn't be home on my original flight. Suzy, the woman with the cell, and I became fast friends, and I talked to her and the family behind me for much of the 2+ hour wait. Quickly, I remembered that I believe all things happen for a reason, and that this was only another adventure to add to my travel tales -- that I would learn a lot from the experience. So with a very positive attitude, I approached the smiling United employee I had been praying to get, and told her I'd come from Australia, had been up a very long time, and was very flexible on which airport I returned to other than Dulles, naming 3 others my parents probably wouldn't mind too much. I told her how happy I was to get her, because I had noticed how friendly she had seemed to the other people and how quickly she seemed to get them new iteneraries. She said I was so sweet and got to work, making calls and typing away at her keyboard. Finally, she found me a flight to Denver leaving in 30 minutes, with a 4-hour layover, and then a flight to BWI (Baltimore) arriving at 11:47pm. That was better than some of the other flights I'd heard about while in line, so I snagged it and raced to security and to my gate, which of course was the last United gate from the counter :-). Once on board, I borrowed the cell phone of the guy beside me and called mom to give her the update.
When I arrived in Denver, I noticed my flight to BWI wasn't on the Depatures board and figured maybe it was still too early. Then, I realized my bags were either on their way to Dulles or somewhere at LAX, so I got in the long Customer Service line, figuring I had several hours to kill anyway. I called mom from another borrowed phone to give her my baggage claim numbers and asked if she could try to find where they were. When I got to the front of the line though, I asked the woman to check, and they'd be arriving in Dulles at 5:30pm. While in line, I had noticed that the gate directly behind us had a flight leaving for Dulles in an hour! Feeling like I was on The Amazing Race, I asked the woman if there was any room on that flight, and there wasn't. *But*, a flight that was supposed to leave for Dulles that morning at 11:40 had been terribly delayed, and it was leaving in another 20 minutes. After pecking at the keys for what seemed like forever, the woman declared I was on and printed my boarding pass. Hoorah! I walked briskly to the gate and asked another person to borrow their phone to call mom with the update. She saw my UVA shirt and asked if I went there because her husband graduated from there. LOVE IT!! So she gladly let me borrow her phone, introduced me to a friend of hers proudly, and then they offered me money for a meal and water. Aww! They said I had enough time, so I thanked them and took my own money and headed off to buy a salad and water. With all that running around, I hadn't had a drop to drink in many hours.
Eventually we boarded and the flight to Dulles was uneventful. I arrived, walked quickly to the shuttle to take me to baggage claim, and held back tears I was afraid would fall the second I saw my parents. "Thankfully," they weren't right at the side door, so I got to set the tears aside, and when I finally spotted them at the escalator where they expected me, I smiled broadly and they pointed and waved. They had found my luggage already from a large storage room (hoorah!) and after greeting me, they immediately realized I'd lost weight on the trip. I had purposefully not told them, because I wanted them to be surprised :-). You'd think I'd be tired after all of that, but I gabbed the entire way to the car and the entire way home, as they asked me questions about my adventure. It was daytime in Australia, and I was wide awake :-). By the time I finally got to bed that night, I realized I had only slept about 7 hours in 72!!
Last night I slept about 9 hours, took a walk for an hour and 45 minutes today, bought a few necessities, and started uploading pictures, before Flickr announced it had problems and would be unavailable for a few hours. So feel free to start looking if you want, but they're in no order whatsoever!
A few of you have emailed or called to say you wanted to comment on my blog during the trip, but you couldn't figure out how, since you weren't a Blogger member. Click on the Comments link after the post and click on "other" or "anonymous" and just fill in or sign your name with your comment -- you don't have to be a Blogger member :-)
A number of you also asked questions in your comments to me, and I'll answer those sometime in the next few days. For now, it's bedtime, and tomorrow I'm shopping for new clothes for my new job!!
The line for Qantas check-in was very long, and I knew I was a little too early to check in, but I figured it would take ages to make it up front. When it was finally my turn, I was informed it was too early for my flight -- "Oh wait, it's exactly 7:50, so it should open any minute...oh yes, here we go!" So I was officially the first person to check in for my flight O:-). For the first time, I was "randomly selected" to be scanned for explosives after clearing security. I walked through the shops and circled the airport, resisting the urge to spend my last $5 bill on chocolate O:-). I had $7 left in coins, and I bought a Two Up set for $6.95. Patrick, the WonderBus tour guide, told us about the game during the bus ride to the Blue Mountains as he described ANZAC Day :-)
The Qantas flight was uneventful, except I did have a nice elderly man sitting on one side of me, and a group leader from People to People on the other side.
When I arrived at LAX, I had to pass through the initial customs screening, get my checked luggage, go to a customs officer who hardly even read my form, and recheck my luggage at a station to be sent along on my flight to Dulles. When I arrived at the terminal for United, I saw on the Departures board that my flight had been cancelled!! I was so frustrated initially because I had only slept about 5 of the last who-knows-how-many hours. A woman directed me to the "Additional Services" line, where I stood for over 2 hours. For the first 10 minutes in line, I was so upset and held in tears -- I was so sleepy and just wanted to get home. A nice woman in front of me let me use her cell to call mom and let her know I wouldn't be home on my original flight. Suzy, the woman with the cell, and I became fast friends, and I talked to her and the family behind me for much of the 2+ hour wait. Quickly, I remembered that I believe all things happen for a reason, and that this was only another adventure to add to my travel tales -- that I would learn a lot from the experience. So with a very positive attitude, I approached the smiling United employee I had been praying to get, and told her I'd come from Australia, had been up a very long time, and was very flexible on which airport I returned to other than Dulles, naming 3 others my parents probably wouldn't mind too much. I told her how happy I was to get her, because I had noticed how friendly she had seemed to the other people and how quickly she seemed to get them new iteneraries. She said I was so sweet and got to work, making calls and typing away at her keyboard. Finally, she found me a flight to Denver leaving in 30 minutes, with a 4-hour layover, and then a flight to BWI (Baltimore) arriving at 11:47pm. That was better than some of the other flights I'd heard about while in line, so I snagged it and raced to security and to my gate, which of course was the last United gate from the counter :-). Once on board, I borrowed the cell phone of the guy beside me and called mom to give her the update.
When I arrived in Denver, I noticed my flight to BWI wasn't on the Depatures board and figured maybe it was still too early. Then, I realized my bags were either on their way to Dulles or somewhere at LAX, so I got in the long Customer Service line, figuring I had several hours to kill anyway. I called mom from another borrowed phone to give her my baggage claim numbers and asked if she could try to find where they were. When I got to the front of the line though, I asked the woman to check, and they'd be arriving in Dulles at 5:30pm. While in line, I had noticed that the gate directly behind us had a flight leaving for Dulles in an hour! Feeling like I was on The Amazing Race, I asked the woman if there was any room on that flight, and there wasn't. *But*, a flight that was supposed to leave for Dulles that morning at 11:40 had been terribly delayed, and it was leaving in another 20 minutes. After pecking at the keys for what seemed like forever, the woman declared I was on and printed my boarding pass. Hoorah! I walked briskly to the gate and asked another person to borrow their phone to call mom with the update. She saw my UVA shirt and asked if I went there because her husband graduated from there. LOVE IT!! So she gladly let me borrow her phone, introduced me to a friend of hers proudly, and then they offered me money for a meal and water. Aww! They said I had enough time, so I thanked them and took my own money and headed off to buy a salad and water. With all that running around, I hadn't had a drop to drink in many hours.
Eventually we boarded and the flight to Dulles was uneventful. I arrived, walked quickly to the shuttle to take me to baggage claim, and held back tears I was afraid would fall the second I saw my parents. "Thankfully," they weren't right at the side door, so I got to set the tears aside, and when I finally spotted them at the escalator where they expected me, I smiled broadly and they pointed and waved. They had found my luggage already from a large storage room (hoorah!) and after greeting me, they immediately realized I'd lost weight on the trip. I had purposefully not told them, because I wanted them to be surprised :-). You'd think I'd be tired after all of that, but I gabbed the entire way to the car and the entire way home, as they asked me questions about my adventure. It was daytime in Australia, and I was wide awake :-). By the time I finally got to bed that night, I realized I had only slept about 7 hours in 72!!
Last night I slept about 9 hours, took a walk for an hour and 45 minutes today, bought a few necessities, and started uploading pictures, before Flickr announced it had problems and would be unavailable for a few hours. So feel free to start looking if you want, but they're in no order whatsoever!
A few of you have emailed or called to say you wanted to comment on my blog during the trip, but you couldn't figure out how, since you weren't a Blogger member. Click on the Comments link after the post and click on "other" or "anonymous" and just fill in or sign your name with your comment -- you don't have to be a Blogger member :-)
A number of you also asked questions in your comments to me, and I'll answer those sometime in the next few days. For now, it's bedtime, and tomorrow I'm shopping for new clothes for my new job!!
1 Comments:
Congrats on your first "pat-down." The first time I got that, I had been sooo frustrated from carrying my carry-on the way to wherever I was going that on my return trip home, I took only my book and my small purse. I went through the enormously long security line and put my stuff on the belt. After the initial scanning the TSA guy had to retrieve my carry-on off the belt to search it by hand. When I told him that I only had the book and the small purse, I think I made his day. Of all the times to carry-on nothing, I picked a good one! :-)
That stinks that people couldn't figure out the comment thing. Was it jbhirt? She still hasn't seen my wedding!
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Anonymous, at 9:23 PM
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