I went up to DC/Baltimore this weekend for my sisters' fiance's bachelor party this weekend(there will be a somewhat censored blog about that in a bit I'm sure). But until then, I just feel the need to bitch about how bad my flying experience was this weekend.
For whatever reason, I always have the WORST luck when it comes to flying. Usually, if I'm on Airtran, my flight is almost certain gonna be late. Which is why I renamed it Latetran. Typically on Delta, they're typically on time, but will lose my bags. Pick your poison I guess. Those are typically my 2 main choices when flying somewhere. Two weeks ago, I flew up to Boston on Latetran...with no problems! They were actually early, it was nuts! Now, this weekend more than made up for it. And it was Delta, not Latetran this time. I can't say it was Delta's fault. This was all weather related. My flight was supposed to leave at 5:20 on Friday night. I was being picked up by a couple of Brian's friends whom I'd never met before, then driving up to Baltimore to the hotel. So, we finally board the plane and leave the gate. We get to the runway and there's about 20 planes ahead of us. And here I thought I already drove through Atlanta rush hour! Pretty soon the wind picks up its getting real dark...and finally, lightning. Keep in mine, I think its rained three times in Atlanta since 2002. Or at least it seems that way. The pilot comes on and says they're shutting the engines off and we're gonna be sitting there a while. Ughhhhhh. Not good. I didn't want to hold up the bachelor party, but what could I do? We weren't supposed to be able to use our phones, or so I thought? I heard someone behind me a few rows back turned their phone on...the girl next to me turned hers on, so I said, well, if everyone else is doing it...so I called Brian to have everyone just go up to Baltimore and not to wait on me, and I'd meet up with them eventually, probably Saturday or something. I was pissed!!! At least I did get to sit next to a pretty cool girl on the flight. She had amazing blue eyes, which made me feel weird because I don't usually notice or even think things like that! Aleatha, if you're out there somewhere, you have nice eyes, and sorry for probably butchering the spelling of your name! Turns out she also just moved a month ago and lives pretty close to me (Vinings), and she's also done the NYC-ATL-FLA living situation. So it was good that I had someone to talk to. You could only try and sleep on a plane for so long. I think we sat on the runway for 2 hours, then finally took off. The skies still looked pretty bad. And we had a rough take off. I really thought I was gonna die, the plane went up, there was lightning everywhere, and it seemed pretty close. The plane went up and it seemed to stay level for a bit and felt like we were maybe even going back down. I kept telling myself (and her) that they knew what they were doing and that they wouldn't let us take off if it wasn't safe. HA! I was still scared shitless (what exactly does that mean anyways?). I remember almost grabbing her hand before I realized that I really don't know her and that would be a little weird. So, instead I just shut the window. That didn't really last long, because I just had to look out there. Eventually we got through the rough stuff and off to DCA we went. Along the way, I had the most delicious (and most-needed) Miller Lite I've probably ever had. It may have been $5 but it was wonderful :) At this point, I'm still thinking that I'm gonna miss out on the Friday night bachelor party festivities and probably just on Kim's couch all night, while everyone else was out having fun, so thats part of what made the beer taste good. And that it was really cold! Eventually we started going down to land and even that was rough, it really didn't feel right. But, it worked, we landed. Turned my phone on, and there was a text waiting for me from Brian's friends saying that they were gonna wait for me. I was giddy and almost forgot how awful my flight was...yes, I said almost.
Alright, so we skip ahead to Sunday (don't worry, there will be another blog dedicated to Brian's bachelor party). As I'm sure you all know, Sunday afternoon was the championship of the Little League World Series! A team from just south of Atlanta was playing against a team from Japan. It went into extra innings, but I missed the end of it because I had to get to the airport for my 7:55 flight (which I originally thought was 6:55 and would've been the same flight as that Aleatha girl from the first nightmare flight.) Of course, almost as soon as I get to the gate...an HOUR before my flight, the flight is already delayed 40 minutes. So, 8:35 the flight leaves...the gate. And just as almost expected, we got to the runway area...and the pilot comes on the loud speaker and tells us of bad weather to the south and that we'd be sitting there a while, so he shut off the engines. Are you kidding me? Again? The good news is that this flight was only about a third full, so I had 3 seats all to myself, so I got two blankets and sprawled across the seats the entire time. After about an hour and a half we actually did take off pretty smoothly, but again, you could see lightning out the window. Scary stuff. Once we got above the clouds, it was cool seeing the lightning from above. I tried getting my camera out, but then remembered...its acting brokened. It knows a replacement is on its way (I won a digital camera through my fantasy baseball skills! So stop making fun of me!). Anyways, got into Atlanta, and just when you'd think the miserable trip is over...there was no place for the plane to park!!!! We were supposed to go to terminal C, but we wound up at terminal E, which is the international terminal. I was starting to wonder if I was gonna have to go through customs or something? I didn't, but the terminal was about 55 degrees. It was COLD! Found my car, paid 42 friggin dollars to park for 3 days (I guess paying $20 not to ride Marta twice may have been worth it). Got home at about 12:20am. Ughhhh.
And what do I do tonight??? I book another flight to DC. What the hell is wrong with me???? I'm not flying on Latelta though (ok, so that doesn't work as well), but I'm going on Earlytran next time!!!!
