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Day 1: 10 June 2002 - "I think it was called... 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down'."
After Becky's graduation party the day before, I finally had space to myself for packing. I require an insane amount of space for packing, because everything has to be set down and sorted out in piles before it can actually go into the suitcase. But Alex helped me and I managed to get most of my stuff packed before the day of our departure.
My family took me to the airport and I insisted on carrying all of my bags myself, because I had packed all of that stuff and I was going to be strong and put up with the weight. I ran along ahead, carrying my purse and carry-on and dragging my suitcase, the biggest in the house. My stuff all fit in a smaller one, but Alex insinuated that I might want to bring a bigger one to "bring stuff back in". Hee. Presents.
I ran ahead of my family into the terminal and found Alex and Nancy (his host mom) waiting for us. We went to the check-in and the check-in lady didn't seem to like us much. She had us take our checked suitcases over to the x-ray machine and have them scanned. Then we we had to take them to another lady, who put the tags on them, indicating where the bags were going to.
"Oh, Salt Lake City," she remarked as I handed over my bag. "Wha--?!" I exclaimed, after it sunk in, "No, Santiago, Chile." She laughed and pointed out that she'd mistaken Santiago's SCL abbreviation for Salt Lake City's SLC. We understood, but we were concerned throughout the journey that someone else was going to make the same mistake and our bags were going to take a trip to Utah.
We said our goodbyes to Nancy and my family and went through the security checkpoints. I, the least suspicious-looking person in the world, was stopped and had to do a check with that electronic wand-thingy. It was actually pretty cool - much better than Becky's experience last year of being frisked in London Heathrow or Gatwick or wherever it was. The lady doing the security check was very nice to me, so it was alright.
We continued to our gate and rather soon after were allowed to board our plane. We got to our seats and thumbed through the in-flight magazines. "Ooooooooh," we remarked, "Britney Spears movie." Crossroads haunted us through all of our flights, but I did manage not to see it at all. Hooray for me.
We finished reading the in-flight magazines, the in-flight catalogue, the safety directions, the barf bags, and whatever else we could find in the seat pocket. The pilot came over the intercom saying that we couldn't take off yet because of thunderstorms in Chicago. Then she came on saying that we were next to leave. Then she came on again, saying that no, we weren't going to be able to leave for another 40 minutes or so. Then after an hour, we pulled away from the terminal and thought we were going to be the next plane allowed to go to Chicago. Then we weren't. To make a long story short, three hours after our original 5:07pm departure time, we finally took off for Chicago.
They assured us that since we weren't being allowed to go to Chicago, our flight to Miami wouldn't be leaving from Chicago without us. We weren't so sure. Three hours and 48 minutes into our waiting period, Alex was singing:
I hate Chicago in the springtime
I hate Chicago in the fall
I hate Chicago in the summer when it rains
I hate Chicago in the winter when it rains
I hate Chicago, oh why oh why do I hate Chicago?
Because my flight is there
without me on it.
After a 1.5 hour flight, the loss of an hour due to time zone changes, and an hour spent flying around in circles, waiting to land - after about 6 hours spent inside the plane for a trip that would have taken about 4 hours to drive - we arrived in Chicago. Our flight to Santiago was nowhere to be seen on the departures screen. We went to a counter and asked about it. The man looked it up in the computer and told us that it had taken off at 8:00, but that we might be able to catch the upcoming flight to Sao Paolo and get a connecting flight from there. He directed us to the customer service desk down the hall to see about how to get where we were going.
We stood in line, singing "Brazil" and talking about how missing our flight might not be a disaster after all. We got up to the front of the line and it must have been either too late to redirect us through Sao Paolo or the seats were sold out. We were told that the first flight they could put us on was the one 24 hours after hours. Oh joy. The man didn't issue us a new boarding pass, but instead gave us a little card with all of the information about our new flight. The only seats he could get us, he said, were in the last row. We didn't mind too much - we would be near the bathroom if we needed it.
We had hoped that we would at least get a free night in a hotel out of the deal, but apparently that doesn't count in cases of weather problems. We did, however, get a little voucher to ensure us a deal on local hotel rooms and an overnight toiletries bag. Our checked luggage would be spending the night in the airport, which meant that those of us who had packed toiletries and a change of clothes in our carry-on (me) were luckier than those of us who hadn't (Alex). Earlier that day he had mocked me for bringing a change of clothes with me, "If they lose my luggage, I have plenty of clothes to wear at home." Ha ha.
We found phones and called our various families, then waited forever for the hotel shuttle with a student from Texas who was originally from Korea and was travelling with her mother. It finally arrived and the people who had been waiting packed into it. I ended up on Alex's lap, I believe, because there were so many people waiting in the rain, angry about missing flights and desperate to get to the hotel and relax. We took the shuttle to the Days Inn in Addison, IL (I have no idea where that is in relation to Chicago, but it was the cheapest price the dealy-thing gave me). The most exciting part was that we ordered a pizza (no dinner service on our 5pm Detroit-Chicago flight, of course, so we were starving) and expected that they would call us from the front desk to come and get it, the way they do in Albion. Instead, there was a knock on the door of our room - the pizza was delivered directly to us! Ah, the small things impress me.
srah - Monday, 10 June 2002 - 8:10 PM
Tags: chile, travel
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