For those of you who speak Czech (I do not count myself among you), you will know from the title that I am here in Prague! It was a long and stressful journey (more tired than stressful--everything went perfectly) and I am currently sitting in my house on Petrin Hill in Golden Praha.
I will give you a shortened version of my trip for multiple reasons:
1) There's really only so much I can say about watching True Blood, Flight of the Conchords, and Seventeen Again for hours
2) I've been here for a week and have forgotten some of my journey (though remember the most important things, I hope, and if I've forgotten an important thing already, it really can't be all that important)
3) I don't feel like spending a lot of time talking about all that stuff when I can tell you about my (not so interesting) daily life here in Prague.
The most important thing that I can say about my trip from Christchurch (to Sydney to Singapore to Frankfurt) to Prague is that I was not left behind in Singapore. I managed to catch all of my flights with plenty of time to spare. This is a good thing--I seem to have had all my flight problems on the way from MN to CHC. Success!
the flight from Singapore to Frankfurt was quite possibly one of the more painful experiences of my life. I had forced myself to stay awake through the first two flights that got me to Singapore so that I would be able to sleep for most of the 12 hour flight and maybe wind up in Europe with some kind of amazing, non-existent jet-lag. Sadly, this was not the case. The flight began well enough, with my promptly falling asleep against the window (somehow I lucked into a window seat in all my long flights). Unfortunately, I was woken up about an hour into the flight when the meal cart flight attendant was chastising the man in front of me because he told her he didn't want anything to eat. "You do realize that you're not going to eat for the next eleven hours? That's how long it is until we're going to serve another meal again. Are you sure you can last eleven hours? That's breakfast. That's a long time. So you really don't want a meal? Are you sure about that? Well, okay. I guess if you really don't want one. And it's eleven hours. You do realize that, don't you? Eleven hours. Well, okay." And then she moved on.
I had not been planning on eating dinner, but after that, I decided it would be easier to just take it and poke the meal around a bit. She moved the cart back to me and asked me what I wanted. I was sitting in a particularly noisy part of the plane, and even though I knew what she was asking, I said, "What?" out of habit. "Would you" she pointed to me "like something" she gestured to the cart in front of her "to eat" she mimed shovelling food into her mouth. I'm pretty sure I heard the woman sitting next to me quietly scoff at this. "Yeah, yeah, I know," I said. "What are my options?"
The flight attendant was annoyed now, maybe because she wasted her sign language on someone who was not deaf but just groggy from being awoken rudely for a meal she didn't want to eat. "Like they said over the intercom--" "I was asleep." "--we have fish curry and--" The second possibility was lost into the noise of the engine. Deciding that now would not be the best time to have my first experience with fish curry (I didn't want to dislike it before I'd tried a real version of it) I quickly said, "Yeah--that one. The second one, whatever that was," and she handed me a meal. The woman next to me ordered the same as me, while her husband ordered the fish curry.
Looking at my tray, I was distinctly unappealed (is that a word) to everything on the plate. The salad was a "bean salad" consisting solely of limp-looking green beans and soggy lima beans. The bread looked hard. The dessert was a mass of...something brown.
I pulled the cover off the main course of my meal at the same time as the woman. We both stared at the trays for a few seconds after the foil cover was removed, and then we turned to look at each other, looks of disgust playing across our faces. "I hope the bread's good," I said to her. "I suppose I'll just eat the mashed potatoes," she said in response. The meal didn't even meet my expectations.
When it came time for dessert, I was hoping for some kind of apple thing. It looked like that could potentially be what it was. I thought I saw the woman next to me bite into hers, but after I took my first bite, she quickly asked, "What is it? I was waiting for you to try it." "It's rice something," I told her. We both left our desserts unfinished as well.
I really think I would have been better off sleeping through dinner. Kudos to the man who wouldn't back done and flat out refused to eat their disgusting meal.
I would really also like to point out that it was a complete overexaggeration on the flight attendant's part, saying that we wouldn't eat for eleven hours. Within the next two hours they had passed out a "snack pack" with an apple, some Mentos, a thing of Oreos, a bottle of water, and (possibly? I can't remember) a granola bar. And then a few hours later they passed out bananas.
While we're on the topic of food and airplanes, I feel like now is a good time to mention my most unwelcome welcome to the Czech Republic. I got onto my plane (Czech Airlines) and they said they would be passing out sandwiches and juice (score!) on the hour long flight. Turns out they were passing out cabbage, egg, and mayo (possibly) sandwiches on this weird nutty tasting bread. Minus points for the Czech Republic for even considering this to be food.
One final thing to note before I finish up this note:
I have always thought customs to be a tiring process--you have to fill out forms, wait in line, tell people all about the purpose of your stay, say everything you've done and eaten in the past six weeks, have your bags checked, and practically sell your soul in order to prove that you are worthy of getting into their country. When I landed in Frankfurt, I had to go out into the main area of the airport (as well as get my passport stamped) in order to get to my gate for the flight to Prague. I didn't think twice about this--I was just passing through the airport and I would have no need to be checked because I didn't need to be deemed worthy of entry into the country because I didn't want to stay there. I was a bit taken aback, though, when I arrived in the Czech airport. I followed all the signs to the exit, which led me directly to the baggage claim. After getting my sizeable bag from the turntable thing, I went through the exit marked "Nothing to Declare" and found myself free. No stamped passport, no baggage checks, nothing declared, just sweet, sweet freedom.
On that note, I'm off to do some Czech homework--Intensive Czech classes started yesterday--and I will probably be back after I finish up the homework for another short post, just to get you all updated to where I am now.
Have fun Stateside!
Showing posts with label airport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airport. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Sydney Reflections on Queenstown
Well I’m in the Sydney airport right now, waiting for my flight to Singapore to board. For some reason they put me on a flight that goes to Singapore, then London, rather than on the flight that goes from Singapore, then Frankfurt. Instead I have to transfer to the flight I could have been on the whole time after I land in Singapore.
There is a couple behind me bickering about “going to the loo.” They smell like mothballs.
I haven’t written anything since before Queenstown—it’s difficult using Trevor’s computer. Mostly because it’s a PC and I don’t like the click option for it.
Queenstown was a fun trip. It’s a rather enjoyable place, just a ski town nestled between two mountains and it abuts a beautiful lake. It has a walkway that runs alongside it, similar to the Lakewalk.
The first night we were there, we went to a comedy club and watched a couple people perform. They were okay, though the most exciting part of the night was when Trevor and I discovered that one of the guys in the drunk group sitting behind us grew up in Maple Grove. The two of them talked for a while (his name was Joe and he was a photographer/ski bum) and I tried to listen in, but the drunk girl sitting next to Joe decided that I’d have to listen to her instead.
It was rather difficult understanding what she was trying to tell me, though it was obvious she thought it was important (really she was just trying to tell me why she’d left Auckland), but her accent was so thick that I had to ask her to repeat everything she said about three times. Each time she’d happily oblige, giving me a sloppy smile and closing her eyes so long for each blink that I was convinced she was about to pass out. She never did, though. Props to her.
The day after that, we headed over to “Nevis,” a bungy jumping place not far from Queenstown. For those of you who don’t know, the first bunjy jumping site was in Queenstown. We didn’t go on the original one, but went on a bigger one a bit farther away.
We jumped 134 m, which is about 440 ft.
Just going to let that sink in.
For a video/pictures of this event, please refer to my facebook account, where you can see both and get a good idea of how it went for me.
I was pretty confident and excited about it the whole time up until the girl who was three in front of me. She had a minor meltdown on the platform, though the bunjy team was able to talk her off the ledge (and into the valley). After her was a guy who also had a meltdown, though this one was not so minor. Instead of being talked off the ledge, he talked himself down from it and refused to go.
Trevor looked pretty nervous when he went. Though he took it like a pro and jumped off when he was supposed to. Yay for him! I did a terrible job filming his jump on the flipcam, and for that, I apologize to him. But he did an excellent job with mine, so at least I’m happy about that.
I was the last to go (they had us go in order of weight). As they sat me in the chair and got me ready to jump, the man came over and said, “Last but not least, ey? Show them how it’s done.” So I laughed because I really wasn’t sure I’d be able to. But then I did and all was well.
One of the best finds in Queenstown was a little burger joint called “Fergburger.” We saw it our first night in town, and we commented on how it reminded us of Mesa because it was late at night and the line was out the door and the people hardly seemed completely sober. Thursday night, though, was the night when we got to experience it for ourselves.
The night began like any other. Trevor and I, after spending a relaxing afternoon hanging out and reading after the adrenaline rush of bungy jumping from that morning, decided that we wanted to go out to eat at a “nice” restaurant. And by “nice” we meant a place where you could sit down and pronounce the names of the dishes. Preferably not expensive. Unfortunately, Queenstown had no Perkins or Denny’s, so it was impossible to find a “nice” and “cheap” restaurant. Instead we followed the somewhat jumbled directions that we had received from the man who drives the shuttle between the town and the jumping center. What we could really only remember was that it was supposed to be an Australian restaurant, you get there by taking a right and then a left, and that it had a fireplace.
We followed our own instructions, melded together with the instructions from this gentleman, and found ourselves at a restaurant on the left side of the street at the very end after having taken a right to get there. Looking inside, we could see a fireplace at the back.
Unfortunately, after sitting down and being handing glasses of water at candlelit tables, we glanced at the menu and realized that we were in a French restaurant with sky-high prices, un-pronounceable dishes, and sky-high prices (they were very high, at least for us).
So we gathered our things and made a run for it, creating some fake excuse about having to meet someone. As we ran out, the waitress laughed. She’d known we were out of our league.
This is how we came across Fergburger for the second time.
The next morning, before we left Q, we returned again.
Fergburger is quite possibly one of the greatest finds of that trip, and I am seriously considering returning to Queenstown to be a Fergburger bum and spend the rest of my life making Fergburgers for the masses and bungy jumping every Friday (to start the weekend off right).
My last day in New Zealand was one of the most beautiful days of the trip. It had been cool, but beautiful when we were in Christchurch for the first few days, and then it was absolutely freezing—cold and wet, wet, wet—in Queenstown, but my last day in Christchurch was crisp and sunny—the perfect spring day that feels like fall.
So we went for a hike in Banks Peninsula. Trevor had been there before, but it had been foggy then. He said he was shocked by the how different it looks when there aren’t any clouds.
Because we had gotten such an early start for the day, by the time we were done with the hike and back in Christchurch, it was only one o’clock, so we spent the afternoon slacklining and reading in Hagley Park, where I made even greater improvements and managed to stay on for nearly a minute. Yay for me!
Trevor even said that of all the people who can’t slackline, I am the best at it. This is a compliment.
After a few hours of this, we walked into downtown, going into some shops, and eventually found ourselves in a Mexican restaurant for an early dinner. I had a Margarita. He had some Happy Hour Chardonnay. We also ate food.
The next day I left for the next portion of my adventure, the portion that would take me 11,500 miles (in 35 hours) from the location of my final week of summer.
Next up: airports, airplanes, and airline food
**This was posted (mostly written) a few days after I was actually in the Sydney airport
There is a couple behind me bickering about “going to the loo.” They smell like mothballs.
I haven’t written anything since before Queenstown—it’s difficult using Trevor’s computer. Mostly because it’s a PC and I don’t like the click option for it.
Queenstown was a fun trip. It’s a rather enjoyable place, just a ski town nestled between two mountains and it abuts a beautiful lake. It has a walkway that runs alongside it, similar to the Lakewalk.
The first night we were there, we went to a comedy club and watched a couple people perform. They were okay, though the most exciting part of the night was when Trevor and I discovered that one of the guys in the drunk group sitting behind us grew up in Maple Grove. The two of them talked for a while (his name was Joe and he was a photographer/ski bum) and I tried to listen in, but the drunk girl sitting next to Joe decided that I’d have to listen to her instead.
It was rather difficult understanding what she was trying to tell me, though it was obvious she thought it was important (really she was just trying to tell me why she’d left Auckland), but her accent was so thick that I had to ask her to repeat everything she said about three times. Each time she’d happily oblige, giving me a sloppy smile and closing her eyes so long for each blink that I was convinced she was about to pass out. She never did, though. Props to her.
The day after that, we headed over to “Nevis,” a bungy jumping place not far from Queenstown. For those of you who don’t know, the first bunjy jumping site was in Queenstown. We didn’t go on the original one, but went on a bigger one a bit farther away.
We jumped 134 m, which is about 440 ft.
Just going to let that sink in.
For a video/pictures of this event, please refer to my facebook account, where you can see both and get a good idea of how it went for me.
I was pretty confident and excited about it the whole time up until the girl who was three in front of me. She had a minor meltdown on the platform, though the bunjy team was able to talk her off the ledge (and into the valley). After her was a guy who also had a meltdown, though this one was not so minor. Instead of being talked off the ledge, he talked himself down from it and refused to go.
Trevor looked pretty nervous when he went. Though he took it like a pro and jumped off when he was supposed to. Yay for him! I did a terrible job filming his jump on the flipcam, and for that, I apologize to him. But he did an excellent job with mine, so at least I’m happy about that.
I was the last to go (they had us go in order of weight). As they sat me in the chair and got me ready to jump, the man came over and said, “Last but not least, ey? Show them how it’s done.” So I laughed because I really wasn’t sure I’d be able to. But then I did and all was well.
One of the best finds in Queenstown was a little burger joint called “Fergburger.” We saw it our first night in town, and we commented on how it reminded us of Mesa because it was late at night and the line was out the door and the people hardly seemed completely sober. Thursday night, though, was the night when we got to experience it for ourselves.
The night began like any other. Trevor and I, after spending a relaxing afternoon hanging out and reading after the adrenaline rush of bungy jumping from that morning, decided that we wanted to go out to eat at a “nice” restaurant. And by “nice” we meant a place where you could sit down and pronounce the names of the dishes. Preferably not expensive. Unfortunately, Queenstown had no Perkins or Denny’s, so it was impossible to find a “nice” and “cheap” restaurant. Instead we followed the somewhat jumbled directions that we had received from the man who drives the shuttle between the town and the jumping center. What we could really only remember was that it was supposed to be an Australian restaurant, you get there by taking a right and then a left, and that it had a fireplace.
We followed our own instructions, melded together with the instructions from this gentleman, and found ourselves at a restaurant on the left side of the street at the very end after having taken a right to get there. Looking inside, we could see a fireplace at the back.
Unfortunately, after sitting down and being handing glasses of water at candlelit tables, we glanced at the menu and realized that we were in a French restaurant with sky-high prices, un-pronounceable dishes, and sky-high prices (they were very high, at least for us).
So we gathered our things and made a run for it, creating some fake excuse about having to meet someone. As we ran out, the waitress laughed. She’d known we were out of our league.
This is how we came across Fergburger for the second time.
The next morning, before we left Q, we returned again.
Fergburger is quite possibly one of the greatest finds of that trip, and I am seriously considering returning to Queenstown to be a Fergburger bum and spend the rest of my life making Fergburgers for the masses and bungy jumping every Friday (to start the weekend off right).
My last day in New Zealand was one of the most beautiful days of the trip. It had been cool, but beautiful when we were in Christchurch for the first few days, and then it was absolutely freezing—cold and wet, wet, wet—in Queenstown, but my last day in Christchurch was crisp and sunny—the perfect spring day that feels like fall.
So we went for a hike in Banks Peninsula. Trevor had been there before, but it had been foggy then. He said he was shocked by the how different it looks when there aren’t any clouds.
Because we had gotten such an early start for the day, by the time we were done with the hike and back in Christchurch, it was only one o’clock, so we spent the afternoon slacklining and reading in Hagley Park, where I made even greater improvements and managed to stay on for nearly a minute. Yay for me!
Trevor even said that of all the people who can’t slackline, I am the best at it. This is a compliment.
After a few hours of this, we walked into downtown, going into some shops, and eventually found ourselves in a Mexican restaurant for an early dinner. I had a Margarita. He had some Happy Hour Chardonnay. We also ate food.
The next day I left for the next portion of my adventure, the portion that would take me 11,500 miles (in 35 hours) from the location of my final week of summer.
Next up: airports, airplanes, and airline food
**This was posted (mostly written) a few days after I was actually in the Sydney airport
Monday, August 24, 2009
In the New Zeezy
I arrived yesterday, a bit delayed (but still alive) and minus 50 pounds of baggage. It's a funny story:
Once upon a time, a girl named Emily Rose decided she wanted to go to New Zealand to visit her boyfriend before she made her way over to Prague to study art history. On the day of her flight to New Zealand, she was a bit nervous about her first solo trans-Pacific flight, but knew that, somehow, everything would turn out fine. Earlier in the day, she had had lunch with her friend Hannah and Hannah had warned her that things wouldn't go the way they were supposed to. When Emily Rose was in the car, her grandmother called and told her that nothing would go according to plan. Emily Rose accepted both of these statements, even though she didn't like them.
Her flight was supposed to take off at 5 and load at 430, so Emily Rose left her parents and sister (who had come to see her off and give her tasty treats for the flight[s]) behind at 330 as she went through security. Security was about the only thing to go right for the next 20 hours.
Emily Rose loaded the plane just fine and everything seemed to be going well. She had the window seat for the flight to Los Angeles and she was looking forward to catching up on some sleep, or reading some of her magazines, or doing some serious soul-searching and determine the meaning of life. Unfortunately, ten minutes before the flight was supposed to leave, the pilot came on over the PA and announced that every had to get off the plane--they had found a leak they originally thought to be small but it turns out it was a big leak. Everyone would be updated on the status of the flight in about an hour.
Forty-five minutes later, an announcement came on at gate G14. They were still working on the flight, and would be updated in about another half an hour. After that half an hour went by, they announced they were still working and that the next update would be in an hour.
Emily Rose didn't know what to do. This was a very difficult position for her. She knew that she was going to miss her flight if they didn't take off within the next hour or hour and a half, and from what she'd heard, this didn't seem to likely. Luckily, her spirits were lifted when just a few minutes after that last update, they announced that a new flight and a new gate were in order. So everyone packed up and moved over.
Emily Rose was hopeful. She should not have been.
The plane began boarding at 640. The plane left at 8. The only fortunate thing about the plane ride was that there were others on the plane in a similar position. The other two people in her row were going to Australia, via Qantas (to Sydney) and Virgin Australia (to Brisbane). Their flights left an hour after hers, but she still knew that following them would only be a help to her. Sydney and Brisbane did some general bashing of Delta, which Emily Rose would have been more than happy to join in with if she had had anything to add, other than the present situation. They were disgusted with the way the approached the situation with the original plane, the politeness (yet general worthlessness) of the flight attendants, and were generally very angry people.
This did not help Emily Rose's state of mind. She was very happy when the conversation drifted into the personal lives of Sydney and Brisbane. Brisbane was headed to Brisbane because his daughter was studying in Queensland--apparently just a short drive from Brisbane. He was going on a short trip, only four days, because his daughter was "having problems," which Emily Rose took to mean, from the way he was talking and said it, that she was a bit distracted from her schoolwork with all the pleasures that Queensland can afford to teenagers. Sydney's story was much less interesting, and Emily Rose tried to tune her out.
As the flight went on, Sydney and Brisbane assaulted one of the flight attendants, telling her that they needed to get off the plane first because they had some very close connections to make. "All I can do," she said, "is make an announcement. I can't guarantee that the people will listen." After this exchange, a woman name Julie, also going to Auckland on Emily Rose's flight, stood up and began plotting a plan of action with Sydney, Brisbane, and Emily Rose.
"We just need to get our bags and run," she said. She had to sprint even more than Sydney, Brisbane, and Emily Rose combined--she had to go get her bags from the baggage claim and then go re-check them because she had been unable to check them through.
By the time the airplane had landed, it was too late for Emily Rose to get a spot on her original flight--it was 915 pm in LA and there was no chance she could make her 930 flight. But the 1030 flight was the one thing that kept her going. She knew she could make it with some perseverance and some sprinting, and some ignoring of the fact that her carry-ons, together, weighed about 50 pounds, or so it seemed.
Eventually they got off the plane--by the time ER, S, and B tried to make a run for it, Julie had already disappeared into the crowd, and ER, S, and B were left behind 35 rows of people slowly filing out of the airplane.
And so the run began.
It was nearly impossible for Emily Rose to run--her bags were much too heavy--but she was able to keep up with Brisbane (Sydney had already run ahead, much like an antelope) and Auckland, another man who was headed to Auckland, though with a different carrier from Emily Rose.
When they began getting to the international terminals, Brisbane slowed and asked a man where Virgin Australia check-in was. He was told to go down a couple more numbers. B then asked where Qantas was for Emily Rose. The informant told Emily Rose she had passed where she needed to be and sent her back.
Emily Rose was on her own.
She quickly walked back to the Qantas check-in, and when it was her turn, she went up to the counter and told the woman her predicament. "Hi. I was supposed to be on the 930 flight to Auckland but my first flight was delayed." The woman looked at her questioningly. "930? We don't have a 930 flight to Auckland." "Are you sure?" Emily Rose asked, wondering if she had been booked on a flight to anywhere. "I'm sure...you must be Air New Zealand. Let me check...yes, they had a 930 flight and they have another at 1030. You'll have to be fast. Just follow this around and keep walking. It's in terminal 2 at the very end." "Thank you so much." "Good luck," the woman called after Emily Rose as she half-sprinted half-shuffled to the door and entered the LA summer heat.
When Emily Rose finally arrived at Air New Zealand, Auckland was there, waiting for the person who was helping him return. They smiled at each other and he pointed her over to the Premium desk just so that she'd get faster service. It was there that the transactions were made and Emily Rose got two new tickets, though she also learned that her luggage would not be arriving with her.
Just as she was finishing up with the person helping her with her tickets, Julie came running up, her bag on a trolley, and completely out of breath. "I made it!" she said. "Mine was the third bag off the plane!"
And so the two went through security together and walked up to the plane together, chatting, and Emily Rose borrowing her cell phone to call her parents to tell them to tell her boyfriend she was going to be late.
Once in Auckland, Emily Rose had more time than expected to go through customs and get to her gate. She was feeling very happy about this until she had to file a claim with baggage services about her suitcase. The people were kind and helpful, and incredibly slow, and by the time Emily Rose made it out of customs, she only had half an hour to find her gate and board. It seems easy enough, but this would prove to be no easy task.
ER followed the signs to the domestic check-in, however, this was not what she needed. She had no bags that she needed to re-check and she already had her boarding pass. All she needed was a gate to go to, and a way to get there. At domestic check-in, she walked one way, then turned around and went the other, then turned and went a completely opposite way. There was a guy in the line looking at her funny, and ER told herself, "Don't look like a tourist." She then spotted a departures board on the wall, walked over, and found that she needed to be at Gate 33. "Awesome," she said to herself. "Gate 33. Now how do I get there?" She looked around.
The guy in line caught her eye as she walked past the black line dividers. "Do you need some help?" he asked. "Yeah. I'm on a domestic flight next," she said. "And is this your checked bag?" he asked, indicating her duffel bag. "No. This is my carry on," she replied. "Then where is your checked bag?" "Lost." "And you have your boarding pass?" "Yes. I just need to find gate 33."
He pointed in some direction behind her. "Just follow the blue line. It will take you to the bus to the domestic terminal." "Great, thanks," Emily Rose said, as she turned and went in a direction where there was blue on the floor, but no blue line. As she passed an information desk, Emily Rose was still lost, and asked the old, wrinkly woman behind it how to get to gate 33. "Go out the next door, cross the street, and take a right."
ER went out the door, crossed the street, and found a group of people sitting on benches. This must be the bus stop, she thought to herself. But after a few minutes with no action, she turned to the people sitting next to her on the bench and asked if this was the stop for the domestic bus. The two shook their heads and gestured towards the left, saying it was on the other side of....something.
Completely confused, Emily Rose began walking to the left, and found a man crossing the street. She asked him, too, where the bus was, and he, too, directed her to the left. She crossed the street, found a man in a jacket that said AUCKLAND AIRPORT and asked him for direction to the bus. He directed her to her right, the same way the man in line (Nelson) and the woman at the Info desk had told her. And as she turned around to follow his directions, she found Nelson, standing at the street corner, heading the same way she was. "I'm still lost!" she told him. And they walked to the bus together.
And Emily Rose caught her flight just in time, and Trevor picked her up (a bit late) but they found each other at the change machine in Christchurch.
The end.
It's a funny story.
Once upon a time, a girl named Emily Rose decided she wanted to go to New Zealand to visit her boyfriend before she made her way over to Prague to study art history. On the day of her flight to New Zealand, she was a bit nervous about her first solo trans-Pacific flight, but knew that, somehow, everything would turn out fine. Earlier in the day, she had had lunch with her friend Hannah and Hannah had warned her that things wouldn't go the way they were supposed to. When Emily Rose was in the car, her grandmother called and told her that nothing would go according to plan. Emily Rose accepted both of these statements, even though she didn't like them.
Her flight was supposed to take off at 5 and load at 430, so Emily Rose left her parents and sister (who had come to see her off and give her tasty treats for the flight[s]) behind at 330 as she went through security. Security was about the only thing to go right for the next 20 hours.
Emily Rose loaded the plane just fine and everything seemed to be going well. She had the window seat for the flight to Los Angeles and she was looking forward to catching up on some sleep, or reading some of her magazines, or doing some serious soul-searching and determine the meaning of life. Unfortunately, ten minutes before the flight was supposed to leave, the pilot came on over the PA and announced that every had to get off the plane--they had found a leak they originally thought to be small but it turns out it was a big leak. Everyone would be updated on the status of the flight in about an hour.
Forty-five minutes later, an announcement came on at gate G14. They were still working on the flight, and would be updated in about another half an hour. After that half an hour went by, they announced they were still working and that the next update would be in an hour.
Emily Rose didn't know what to do. This was a very difficult position for her. She knew that she was going to miss her flight if they didn't take off within the next hour or hour and a half, and from what she'd heard, this didn't seem to likely. Luckily, her spirits were lifted when just a few minutes after that last update, they announced that a new flight and a new gate were in order. So everyone packed up and moved over.
Emily Rose was hopeful. She should not have been.
The plane began boarding at 640. The plane left at 8. The only fortunate thing about the plane ride was that there were others on the plane in a similar position. The other two people in her row were going to Australia, via Qantas (to Sydney) and Virgin Australia (to Brisbane). Their flights left an hour after hers, but she still knew that following them would only be a help to her. Sydney and Brisbane did some general bashing of Delta, which Emily Rose would have been more than happy to join in with if she had had anything to add, other than the present situation. They were disgusted with the way the approached the situation with the original plane, the politeness (yet general worthlessness) of the flight attendants, and were generally very angry people.
This did not help Emily Rose's state of mind. She was very happy when the conversation drifted into the personal lives of Sydney and Brisbane. Brisbane was headed to Brisbane because his daughter was studying in Queensland--apparently just a short drive from Brisbane. He was going on a short trip, only four days, because his daughter was "having problems," which Emily Rose took to mean, from the way he was talking and said it, that she was a bit distracted from her schoolwork with all the pleasures that Queensland can afford to teenagers. Sydney's story was much less interesting, and Emily Rose tried to tune her out.
As the flight went on, Sydney and Brisbane assaulted one of the flight attendants, telling her that they needed to get off the plane first because they had some very close connections to make. "All I can do," she said, "is make an announcement. I can't guarantee that the people will listen." After this exchange, a woman name Julie, also going to Auckland on Emily Rose's flight, stood up and began plotting a plan of action with Sydney, Brisbane, and Emily Rose.
"We just need to get our bags and run," she said. She had to sprint even more than Sydney, Brisbane, and Emily Rose combined--she had to go get her bags from the baggage claim and then go re-check them because she had been unable to check them through.
By the time the airplane had landed, it was too late for Emily Rose to get a spot on her original flight--it was 915 pm in LA and there was no chance she could make her 930 flight. But the 1030 flight was the one thing that kept her going. She knew she could make it with some perseverance and some sprinting, and some ignoring of the fact that her carry-ons, together, weighed about 50 pounds, or so it seemed.
Eventually they got off the plane--by the time ER, S, and B tried to make a run for it, Julie had already disappeared into the crowd, and ER, S, and B were left behind 35 rows of people slowly filing out of the airplane.
And so the run began.
It was nearly impossible for Emily Rose to run--her bags were much too heavy--but she was able to keep up with Brisbane (Sydney had already run ahead, much like an antelope) and Auckland, another man who was headed to Auckland, though with a different carrier from Emily Rose.
When they began getting to the international terminals, Brisbane slowed and asked a man where Virgin Australia check-in was. He was told to go down a couple more numbers. B then asked where Qantas was for Emily Rose. The informant told Emily Rose she had passed where she needed to be and sent her back.
Emily Rose was on her own.
She quickly walked back to the Qantas check-in, and when it was her turn, she went up to the counter and told the woman her predicament. "Hi. I was supposed to be on the 930 flight to Auckland but my first flight was delayed." The woman looked at her questioningly. "930? We don't have a 930 flight to Auckland." "Are you sure?" Emily Rose asked, wondering if she had been booked on a flight to anywhere. "I'm sure...you must be Air New Zealand. Let me check...yes, they had a 930 flight and they have another at 1030. You'll have to be fast. Just follow this around and keep walking. It's in terminal 2 at the very end." "Thank you so much." "Good luck," the woman called after Emily Rose as she half-sprinted half-shuffled to the door and entered the LA summer heat.
When Emily Rose finally arrived at Air New Zealand, Auckland was there, waiting for the person who was helping him return. They smiled at each other and he pointed her over to the Premium desk just so that she'd get faster service. It was there that the transactions were made and Emily Rose got two new tickets, though she also learned that her luggage would not be arriving with her.
Just as she was finishing up with the person helping her with her tickets, Julie came running up, her bag on a trolley, and completely out of breath. "I made it!" she said. "Mine was the third bag off the plane!"
And so the two went through security together and walked up to the plane together, chatting, and Emily Rose borrowing her cell phone to call her parents to tell them to tell her boyfriend she was going to be late.
Once in Auckland, Emily Rose had more time than expected to go through customs and get to her gate. She was feeling very happy about this until she had to file a claim with baggage services about her suitcase. The people were kind and helpful, and incredibly slow, and by the time Emily Rose made it out of customs, she only had half an hour to find her gate and board. It seems easy enough, but this would prove to be no easy task.
ER followed the signs to the domestic check-in, however, this was not what she needed. She had no bags that she needed to re-check and she already had her boarding pass. All she needed was a gate to go to, and a way to get there. At domestic check-in, she walked one way, then turned around and went the other, then turned and went a completely opposite way. There was a guy in the line looking at her funny, and ER told herself, "Don't look like a tourist." She then spotted a departures board on the wall, walked over, and found that she needed to be at Gate 33. "Awesome," she said to herself. "Gate 33. Now how do I get there?" She looked around.
The guy in line caught her eye as she walked past the black line dividers. "Do you need some help?" he asked. "Yeah. I'm on a domestic flight next," she said. "And is this your checked bag?" he asked, indicating her duffel bag. "No. This is my carry on," she replied. "Then where is your checked bag?" "Lost." "And you have your boarding pass?" "Yes. I just need to find gate 33."
He pointed in some direction behind her. "Just follow the blue line. It will take you to the bus to the domestic terminal." "Great, thanks," Emily Rose said, as she turned and went in a direction where there was blue on the floor, but no blue line. As she passed an information desk, Emily Rose was still lost, and asked the old, wrinkly woman behind it how to get to gate 33. "Go out the next door, cross the street, and take a right."
ER went out the door, crossed the street, and found a group of people sitting on benches. This must be the bus stop, she thought to herself. But after a few minutes with no action, she turned to the people sitting next to her on the bench and asked if this was the stop for the domestic bus. The two shook their heads and gestured towards the left, saying it was on the other side of....something.
Completely confused, Emily Rose began walking to the left, and found a man crossing the street. She asked him, too, where the bus was, and he, too, directed her to the left. She crossed the street, found a man in a jacket that said AUCKLAND AIRPORT and asked him for direction to the bus. He directed her to her right, the same way the man in line (Nelson) and the woman at the Info desk had told her. And as she turned around to follow his directions, she found Nelson, standing at the street corner, heading the same way she was. "I'm still lost!" she told him. And they walked to the bus together.
And Emily Rose caught her flight just in time, and Trevor picked her up (a bit late) but they found each other at the change machine in Christchurch.
The end.
It's a funny story.
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