Rough travel days serve as bad bookends to a great week

I didn't write about my trip while I was there because I was having such a great time and wanted to process and post about it later. Since I already wrote about my slightly off day of travel to London, I'm now going to write about my really crazy day of travel home before getting to the good stuff that came in the middle. Just go along with the complaining a bit, okay?

First, just after midnight on new years day I started developing a *wicked* sore throat out of nowhere. This was followed by a night of little sleep. It only got worse during the day and by Thursday night I could hardly breathe, contributing to another nearly sleepless night. By the time Andi and Amy dropped me off at Terminal 3, I had already gone through a fair amount of tissues.

I checked in and dropped off my bag with a woman who told me, "Your bag is now checked through to Washington." To me that meant I wouldn't have to pick up my bag until I was at Dulles. In previous experiences, sometimes you have to pick up your bag in a new country between layovers and recheck it and sometimes you don't. Yeah, just keep this in mind.

I proceed through security where my backpack's contents apparently warrented enough suspicion to get it double checked. Everything came out clear.

The flight to Ottawa was fine except for two things:
1) I blew my nose every few minutes with toilet paper I had collected at Heathrow and scratchy tissues from the plane's bathroom. I know the people around me had to be disgusted because I was.
2) The final 45 minutes where we were descending were TERRIBLE. My ears never popped from the pressure changes and I had this excruciating pain in and around my ears. For a few moments I thought my ears might explode off of my head.

Once in Ottawa I considered stopping by the baggage carousel just in case the woman at Heathrow wasn't right, but I didn't want to waste any time. Not that I didn't have tons of time with 4 hours before my flight home. In fact, I wondered what I was going to do with all of that time. Never, ever wonder...

I got upstairs and was asked if I had any bags to check. When I confidently told him that my bag was checked through to Washington, he shook his head and sent me back downstairs. I asked the woman at the info desk what to do, since I couldn't get back into Customs. She said the man upstairs was wrong and to go back up and ask again. Back up I went to the United desk, where I told my story. He said I'd have to go wait in the Air Canada Baggage Services line to see if they could get someone to go get the bag out of Customs for me because I was supposed to have picked it up before going through Canadian Customs, even though the tags said it was checked through to Dulles. Sigh.

So downstairs I went again and I waited for 30-40 minutes before the frustrated AC rep told me to wait another 30 minutes so he could help other people, since they'd just messed up the baggage for 2-3 flights. Note: DO NOT FLY AIR CANADA. By 5pm I was talking to a rep again, who gave me a slightly hard time but left the desk and got my bag out of Customs anyway. Another note: All of this has taken 2 hours out of my 4 hour layover.

Back upstairs I go through security, since you pass US Immigration and Customs in Canada, which I think is just plain silly. In security my backback caught someone's eyes again. They open it up and proclaim that my peanut butter and two jars of jam I bought (special flavors we don't have here of my favorite brand) are LIQUIDS. Since I usually pack a PBJ for flights, I'd read into it before and found that are not considered liquids. I told the woman this and she said, "Well I have no idea what website you're reading because we confiscate stuff like this every day." I guess Canada is tougher than the US on security. Is this possible? So with a heavy sigh and much hesitation I agree with the woman to check my carry on bag so we won't have to toss my stuff. And another security person walks me BACK to the United desk so we can check the bag. Then I have to do security ALL over again. Thankfully I don't have any suspicious liquids on me. But I guess they were bored or something because this time my rain boots catch their eyes and they run them through x-ray 2 or 3 times. These same boots passed inspection only 10 minutes before. *Facepalm*

I finally pass through Immigration and Customs and reenter the US, even though I'm still on Canadian soil. And although the flight board says my flight is on time, 6:59 comes and goes and there is still no agent at the gate to board us. Miraculously, we still arrived in DC 30 minutes earlier than our scheduled time. And THANK THE MAKER, both of checked bags arrived safely and on time. And my ears finally started popping. And Rachel picked me up and bought me a box of Puffs Plus, so face wouldn't be so red. Because by this time I was putting Rudolph to shame. And my face hurt A LOT.

Thankfully I had a solid night's sleep at Rachel's, I used the entire box of Puffs Plus yesterday while sitting at home, and I slept well again last night. The sickliness isn't over yet and probably won't be for a few more days, but my travel with Air Canada has come to a definite conclusion.

The next posts will be filled with lots more smiles and happiness. Because as bad as the travel days were, the days in between were fantastic.