Lilac Colored Glasses

This Flashback Friday is a perfect opportunity to let everyone know how hellish the trip from Brussels to Pittsburgh turned out to be and thusly, why I pretty much stopped reading and writing blogs all week (no, the fact that I was visiting my family all week would not normally be enough to shut me up blog-wise).

Our flight out of Brussels was scheduled to leave at 9:10 am Tuesday morning, March 25th.  CB and I packed up our stuff, drove over to his parents’ house (they had lent us the car the day before to make things easier), spent the night in CB’s old room and then woke up around 5:30 am to make sure we got to the airport in time.  As I stood, half asleep in the front entrance to the house, CB stuck his head in from outside and whispered, “You have to see this.” I stepped outside and saw mounds of fluffy white snow glowing beneath the porchlight (I had a sore throat when we woke up and now figured it probably had something to do with the weather). Yes, the very first snow of the year in Flanders was on the day we were flying out.  The roads were pretty bad and it took us almost 2 hours to get to Zaventem Airport.  We checked in sort of late, but boarded on time.  Not surprisingly, shortly after everyone was seated and ready to go, the pilot anounced that we would have to wait for the de-icing truck to come and spray down the wings and tail of the plane, because, y’know, IT WAS FRIGGIN’ SNOWING, and that we would be waiting for a half hour or so.  Thirty minutes later the pilot spoke up again and informed us that the de-icing truck had a lot of planes to de-ice and that we would be waiting another half hour or so before it got around to de-icing our plane.  After another thirty minutes or so, I saw the pilot come to the cabin and look out the wondow.

“See,” I murmured to CB, “stupid plane probably defrosted while we were waiting.”

CB chuckled and held my hand.  Have I mentioned how much I hate flying? Cause I do.  I really hate flying.

Ten or so minutes later the pilot pipes up and says, “Ladies and gentlemen thank you for your patience.  It seems that while we’ve been waiting for the truck to come, the wings and tail have defrosted on their own and we can now begin taxiing to the runway.”

I shot CB an I told you so look and we settled in for the ten hour flight to Atlanta, under reassurance from the flight crew that, if we missed our connection, Delta would gladly reschedule us on the next flight from Atlanta to Pittsburgh.

Our flight was scheduled to leave Atlanta at 4:30 EST (10:30 pm Belgium time) and we landed in Atlanta around 3:30 (keep in mind that I hadn’t really managed to sleep more than an hour, CB might have got an hour and a half or two).  We got through customs, rechecked our bags (apparently the US doesn’t trust Europe to properly scan and secure your luggage- you have to reclaim it, take it over to a separate area and have it rechecked by American airport employees, and then go through the whole full body x-ray process again.  So we did that and by that time it was about ten after four so we hustled over to the maglev, which, joy! was broken.  We took off running through the terminal but my heart came close to exploding as we neared the end of the first concourse so we had to stop (note to self, DO MORE CARDIO).  Fortunately the maglev started working again and we were able to get to our gate on time.  We boarded the plane, tired but happy, and waited for take off.

Then the pilot gets on the intercom.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it seems this plane has to be pulled for maintenance.  I’m being told that it needs a certain part…and they don’t seem to have it, so hold on another few minutes and we’ll let you know what’s going on as soon as we can.”

Now, you’d think, since we were flying Delta and we were in their hub in Atlanta, they would have plenty of spare plane parts to go around.  Well, you’d be wrong, because they made us get off the plane and then after another half hour cancelled the flight, telling us to reschedule over at the Delta Information Desk.  So we headed over there, made a phone call and found out that we’d been automatically rebooked on the very next flight leaving Atlanta at 6:30 pm.  They gave us some meal vouchers (7 USD in an airport foodcourt won’t get you much but we found a Popeye’s that was affordable) and told us to go to the gate for the 6:30 flight (12:30 am Belgium time, just so you realize the condition of our brains at this point).

We got to the gate, sat down and then I heard my name being called to check in.  We approached thecounter and the man there told us that we had been rebooked on an already overbooked flight.  There was room for one of us, but not both.  My stomach started to sink.  They asked for volunteers to stay in Atlanta for the night, but of course nobody felt the need to sacrfice their own plans, and who could blame them.  CB held me while I cried into his shoulder.  I was so close to my family, my cat, my other home, and still so far away.  Finally the plane was boarded withonly that one seat still remaining.  CB told the desk worker that either we both went or neither and that was it.  The desk worker (Jarrol, I think his name was) returned from the breezeway and started tapping on the computer (no, he didn’t bother to look at us or speak to us or explain how we would be compensated for Delta’s incompetence).  After he mumbled “uh-oh” under his breath a couple times I interrupted.

“Sir, I know this isn’t your fault, but I would really like to know what you can do to get us where we need to be.  We’ve been up for a long time, we’re tired and frankly, I’m about to reach the end of my rope here.”

“Ok, well, um, see, I’m trying to rebook you on the 9 pm flight, but it says there are restrictions on you and I can’t book it.  We can set you up with a room though…”

“And where is our luggage?”

“That’s on” tap tap tap “flight 2016″ tap tap tap.

“That would be the one that was cancelled, try again.”

“Oh wait now,” tap tap tap “it’s on flight 2026, yeah, that’s where it is.”

“So you mean our bags are on the plane that just left…the one that we couldn’t fit on…but all of our stuff could…so you’ll send us to a room with nothing.”

“Well, your luggage will be waiting for you in Pittsburgh.  They’ll lock it up and you claim it with photo I.D. when you get in tomorrow.  You can go on over to the Delta help desk and they can get your compensation.”

And keep in mind that I’m paraphrasing to make this story move smoothly, by no means was our gleaning of information actually this organized.  Jarrol was all sorts of bumbling and I was all sorts of trembling with rage.  CB is the only one who kept it together but he let me do a lot of the talking.  We got in line at the help desk and were next in line, waaay down at the entrance sign.  A rotund hispanic woman got in line right behind the couple who were actually at the desk, at the sign that said “exit”.

“Ma’am” I called, pointing to the entrance sign to the line.

“I just need to ask a question,” she huffed.

“Well, we have to ask a question too,” CB started just as I threw my hands up in the air, tossed a venomous expletive at the woman and stormed off to rebook our flight via the Delta phone kiosk.  Apparently while I was rebooking, CB (who was under the impression that I had run away- he didn’t see me slouched inside the kiosk hyperventilating our story to the Delta guy that rebooked us for the second time) went on to explain the value of literacy to the woman and to assert that if she knew how to read, she’d understand that she had to enter at the entrance, not the exit and that she had to wait for people who were there before her to ask a question.  She opted to go ask somewhere else.

Finally, new (and guaranteed) flight number in hand, I approached the desk and CB and I got our hotel voucher, some meal vouchers, and 400 Delta SkyMiles (we only got 400 because one of us had the opportunity to take the flight and chose not to…I could get snarky about this, but what’s the point).  We took the shuttle to the hotel (which was very nice and we got a huge room, for what it’s worth), showered, and got ready for bed.  It was around 9:00 pm EST or 3 am Belgium time.  CB passed out around 10 pm and I fell asleep around 11 or so.  We were both awake before 5:30 am and we successfully got back to the airport and into Pittsburgh around noon on Wednesday.

So, that was the beginning of our trip to Pittsburgh.  We arrived 18 hours late and I had a case of viral laryngitis complete with a painful sinus and head cold.  I didn’t end up getting my ear drained, although I did finally get to the dentist and found out that my toothache is from an absess that apparently probably started when I got that filling in December.  I got some antibiotics for it, which sucks cause the pain is still there, I’ll still likely need a root canal, and it rendered my birth control useless.  But hey, missing a day due to the pill being in Pittsburgh when I wasn’t, and then the six hour time change in when I was taking it brought my period on a week early anyway.

Have I mentioned how much I hate flying? Cause I do.  I really hate flying.

Related posts:

1. Flashback Friday – Roll With The Punches
2. Flashback Friday – Belizian Nights
3. Flashback Friday – My First Kiss
4. Flashback Friday – Long Live the King, part the second
5. Flashback Friday – Long Live the King (a two parter)
6. Flashback Friday – Valentines Day, Pre-CB Era
7. Flashback Friday – Blood, Sweat and Tears
8. Flashback Friday: A Single Grain of Sand