Let's Try This Again

It’s now 3:15 am Eastern Standard time and I can’t really sleep. I have been dealing with Hertz issues ever since we miss connected yesterday. As most of you probably know the majority of cars in European fleets are manuals. I can’t really drive a manual. If someone was dying, I could probably get them to hospital based on the few lessons I’ve had from Briana and Ilsa but I certainly wouldn’t want to have to navigate tiny European roads in one. Therefore I wanted Hertz to confirm that it would not be a problem if I picked up my car a day later than planned. It doesn’t seem like this should be a difficult question but evidently it was. It took me four phone calls, spread over ten hours to in fact confirm that I would have no problems. Finally, at 3:30 am, I got this confirmation. I’m going to sleep now and it’s going to feel amazing...

... That sleep was awesome. I was exhausted. It’s now almost 1 pm and mom and I are going to go to the shopping mall within walking distance of our hotel to acquire a few items in case we don’t see our bags for a while...

... Our shopping run was successful. We both got a few clothes to get us through. Mom also bought a pair of shoes (she only had uncomfortable dress shoes, I flew in running shoes) and a small arsenal worth of hair supplies. With our shopping completed we hustled back to the hotel to make the 3:30 pm shuttle to the airport.

Our bags were obviously already checked but we didn’t have boarding passes. I had reserved seats and everything but I needed to get our tickets printed. I approached the counter and explained our previous days misadventures to the check-in lady. Her first response to me was, “you don’t have a business class seat.” In my head I was thinking, “Does she really me want to go Ape $#&^ on her?” She went off and this long explanation of system wide upgrades not allowing for reserved business class seating, blah, blah, blah and I was getting close to losing it. Finally I just said, “So what are you really telling me? Where are our seats.” She eventually decided that she could give us the seats which I was already told three times the previous night I had reserved. I’m not sure what the woman’s deal was but she did have one piece of good news for me that I didn’t have to fight with her over, our bags had been scanned in to DC this morning and should most definitely be on our fight to AMS with us.

We boarded our flight right on time, only to have the captain yet again tell us there would be a delay. Fortunately this time it was weather. There was a storm passing through the Eastern seaboard and air traffic control put an hour delay on our departure. Mom and I looked at each other and laughed noting this was going to be the fourth hour thus far on this trip where we were sitting looking at a jet way.

The flight attendants on our flight were super nice and helpful. The group of fellow business class passengers was also noteworthy because it was an atypical mix. Often times business class passengers very much keep to themselves and do their own thing. Not so on this flight. There were a bunch of middle aged to older women who were all going to see the tulips in Holland. There were a couple business guys that were having fun trying to pick up the old women and one of the flight attendants. There were also two other women who didn’t know each other before boarding but shared a paper from four rows apart.

The afore mentioned business guys are now slightly out of control in what is the approximate middle of the flight. I just spoke with the flight attendant and she said that she had to cut off one of the guys after 10 shots of Jack Daniels. She said at first she thought, “He’s kind of cute. He’s my future husband.” (Blog Note: I thought he was cute too. He looked a bit like Brett Favre.) But now she is thinking, “He’s my future EX husband.”

... No joke, this same guy just laid down on the ground in the aisle... now he is doing military style push ups that he is calling “burpies”... I can honestly say in all the traveling I have done this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone lay down in the aisle or do burpies adjacent to the galley...

We are supposed to land at AMS at 8:15 am according to the map in front of me. It is currently 6:40 am. We have a busy day in front of us, so I need to try and grab another hour of sleep. I’ll write more tomorrow!

Katy