Coming home: The Ugly

I realise I am making this longer than the blogs about the actual purpose of the trip but hey ho, It's my blog, what are you going to do?! 

Anyway, a few hours after my broccoli pizza, there I was at my gate ready for the Belfast flight. I've talked about how much I love this flight when I lived in NC. I still do but not for the ah-listen-to-our-lilty-accents-oh-she's-got-GHDed-hair' reasons anymore. It gets you home quicker, plain and simple. And I definitely love it a bit less after this last trip.

While at the gate, I bumped into someone I knew. And of course it was a Methodist minister! Typical eh?! Anyways, we chatted a bit and then were among the last to board the plane. I am quite particular about where I sit in planes, especially on long flights. I hate feeling trapped and asking people to get out at the whim of my bladder, so I always try to get an aisle seat. This trip home it was lucky seat 15C*!

[* Please note all seat numbers have been changed to protect the identities of the innocent.]

As my Methodist bud and I walked down the aisle (him sitting all the way at the back) I could see that every aisle seat was taken. 'Hmm, is someone sitting in my seat?'. I got down to row 15 and sure enough there was a woman already there.

'Em, excuse me, I think I'm in that seat' I politely said.

'No, I'm here' she replied.

'Oh, 15C?'

'No this is 15A' came the response.

Oh boy. I looked up to the little diagram for confirmation that I have not flown every flight of my life in the wrong seat.

'No, it goes A B C D E F' (gesturing with my hands to show window, middle, aisle, aisle, middle, window)

'No, it goes C B A D E F (gesturing with her hands to show window, middle, aisle, aisle, middle, window)

Seriously? People shouldn't be allowed a passport if they don't know their alphabet and can't understand a simple drawing of seats, windows and people.

Thankfully, my minister bud chipped in, as if an outsider, 'no she's right, that's 15C'. (Unfortunately he wasn't wearing his collar to add extra weight to his comment.)

'No, we asked for two seats together (pointing to her friend in 15D) and she couldn't give us that so she gave us two aisle seats', came the retort.

'Yeah, except that she didn't' I wanted to say.

At this point 15B man chirps up 'well if you want my seat, I'll sit in 15D and you two can sit in 15A and B'. 

This seems mutually acceptable to all parties and the move began. Of course this holds up the line some more and I look like the idiot. This wasn't helped by 15A woman going on and on in an under her breath kind of way (except loud enough for 4 rows to hear her) about how it's only a seat and how I made such a big deal about it, which I really didn't. I didn't make a fuss, I didn't call the hostess over and I definitely didn't say she was too thick to travel (although that last one was a struggle).

It became so awkward that I had to get my iPod out while people were still getting themselves situated. I noticed a few people help me out by giving me 'what are you going to do' faces which was nice, but really not the sort of vocal support I needed against thicko 15A.

Anyway, as time went on at the gate, 15B said to me how they were tired and just wanted to get home. I replied with a few 'don't we all' comments and tried to explain how it really was better to have me in the aisle. She then explained to me that they were supposed to leave New York two days previously but, get this, the taxi driver has taken them to JFK rather than Newark so missed their flight. And you thought I was being unfair when I said about being too stupid to have a passport?!

Finally we taxied out to the runway. Just as we were about to take off, 15B grabbed my hand and 15A's in a show of solidarity. Are you joking me?! I cannot abide it when people applaud the plane landing or when they hold hands when it takes off. Yet here I was holding hands like the sisterhood of the travelling simpletons! Nevermind that they made the previous 20 minutes so unbearable I seriously thought about requesting a seat change to anywhere else on the plane!

So you can imagine I let go pretty quick, well as quickly as was polite and the flight progressed in much the normal way. The trolley came down with the meals, chicken or beef as usual. I chose the beef (it's not really important to the story, but I like to add the extra details). I noticed when I was getting the knife and fork out that I also had a spoon, but no dessert on my tray. Hmm, but I munched away on my salad, before starting into the lasagne.  I then remembered (and convinced myself) that they come back down the aisle with ice cream. A bit later on I noticed a man (14D) eating Pepperidge Farm cookies and thought to myself, 'aww I love them, he must have brought them on with him. He doesn't know there's ice cream!'

A bit later on from that again I noticed 15D man also eating Pepperidge Farm cookies. 'Wait a minute!' I think to myself. I turned to 15B and sure enough she's just finished her packet of Pepperidge Farm cookies!

Taking out my head phones I say 'I didn't get a packet of those!'

'Uch did you not love?! They were lovely too! I got two packets!'

Seriously? You are frigging joking me, she ate my Pepperidge Farm cookies!

So that's why I have fallen a bit out of love with that flight. And I didn't even get to the bit about how they broke my head phones.

Coming home: The Good

The flight to New York was perhaps the nicest flight I have ever had. I say that mostly because of what preceded it and what followed it (we'll get to that). I had charming row mates. One man was going to Maine on holiday ('you have to have the seafood' my other rowmate helpfully told him), the other was going to Jerusalem on business which, as you can imagine opened up many conversation points. He sat in the middle and we talked pretty much the entire way. Although I did start to mark essays at one point and they both helpfully offered me alternate pens as mine suffered from some sort of vertigo and was leaking over my fingers causing some sort of pink tattoo gone wrong look.

At the end of the flight, passengers with short connecting flights got off first and as we were right at the back of the plane we sat on...and sat on...and sat on. Apparently none of us were in a rush. We bid each other farewell as we got our bags from the overhead compartments and I walked out on my merry way. In the terminal I thought it best to check the time of my next flight and as luck would have it there were screens right there. So I consulted them. Then I realised that beside me on one side stood Maine man and on the other was Mr. Jerusalem. It was like a reunion of our row, a mere two minutes after saying goodbye. Aw-kward.

'Ah my flight is on time. Bye bye...again'.

I half expected to see them around the airport, but alas, it wasn't to be. Instead I continued to mark essays and have dinner in my second favourite place to eat.

I say dinner, but it was more of a pre-dinner snack. It was an American diner style place. Kind of like the place Monica from Friends worked in on rollerskates. Disappointingly though, without the rollerskates. Probably against TSA rules.

Of course my favourite place to eat remain Broccoli Pizza Place.

I took this with Obama to show it's current! No library images here.

Obviously, unlike Panera, they have not heeded my letters requesting sweetcorn. Some day they'll be sorry when I don't go back.

Oh ok, that's an empty threat. You're right, I love it too much!

Coming home: The Bad

All good things must come to an end. And skiing was no exception, well it's the seasons isn't it?There wasn't a leg of my journey that wasn't eventful and the joyous news for you is I'm going to tell you about it! Yay!

So Megann and I had booked flights to leave Denver the same day, but due to airline timetabling constraints these were not around the same time. Mine left at 11.00am and Megann's at 4.00pm. So when we arrived at the airport and saw that mine was now delayed until 12.30pm that meant for bonus time with Megann while she waited with all her stuff to check in for her flight.

Now, I'm a big believer in Kathryn H's travel policy of go as far as you can, as early as you can. And before this I couldn't think of a situation where that doesn't work. If you're travelling on your own (as I usually seem to be), move on to the gate, nothing to see here folks. If you're travelling with someone, on you go, best foot forward. But when you're not travelling with someone but have that someone at the airport too? Well, I believe there was just cause to wait with them.

So tick tock...we camped out near the check in for Megann's flight. Mostly we people watched, but reminisced about our trip. As time went on I kept checking to make sure my flight time hadn't changed, and nada, 12.30pm it was. I had my boarding pass out and as the time reached 10.30am, my original boarding time, something inside of me (I think it was too many episodes of Airport wearing off) made me go up the desk and double check. The conversation went like this:

Me: I just wanted to check that my flight is still delayed.

Airline worker: No, the plane is there and as soon as we have crew we'll be ready to leave.

Me: But it's showing 12.30pm on the screen.

Airline worker: Yes, but we have the plane.

Me: Ok, so I really better go then?

Airline worker: Em, yes.

So cue scenes of me saying the quickest goodbye ever and running through Denver airport. Which, just by the way, isn't your 'left and right gate' type of airport, it has an underground train and everything. Of course the line at security was ridiculous, of course I was put in the slowest line with people in lanes beside me going at twice the speed, and of course my guy wanted to know what Ireland was like at the time of year, 'rainy, ha ha ha, am I set?!'. You daren't raise your voice to a TSA man. I have learnt that the hard way didn't I Atlanta?

Anyway, on the other side of security and train (which I rode while dressing myself from security, there's a classy look) I ran the 14 miles to the gate over moving walkways and pushing small children out of the way, only to discover that, yes you've guessed it, it was still delayed. What time did we board? Oh I'd say around 12.00pm. What time did we take off? 12.30pm.

So what did I do in the interim?

Oh yeah, Panda Express Orange Chicken.

Things were on the up.

That was nearly as bad as All Saints

Here is the actual under the bridge video (I like to think of it as the Red Hot Chilis version). Oops.

(Please be aware Brian that we still skied despite the obvious threat of avalanche. No cows in this one, but some shrieking bob cats.)

I did ski, honest

After I posted yesterday's blog I realised that there wasn't one photo of actual skiing. I did.

See.

I think in these photos, as in self shots with my goggles on, I look really like David.

Megann enjoyed the sunshine. Kind of.

My favourite run, well my favourite name of a run!

Videos also played a part in activities. In this one we're overly excited about skiing under a bridge!