Thursday morning:
(1) C and I wake up at 5:45 am becauase we have a 9:00 am flight to catch in Oakland, CA - NON-STOP to Philly (it is about 20 minutes away when there is no traffic - god knows how long if there is). Our goal to leave San Francisco, CA by 6:20 (goal attained).
(2) Arrive at the airport around 6:50 after dropping off the rental car and arriving at the terminal we procede to the Southwest Airline ticket booth to check our bags and get our boarding passes. We use the "Rapid Check-In" keyosk and just when we think it will print our boarding pass - errrr WRONG! There has been an error so we ask the 'nice' lady at the booth - What is the deal? "Oh yeah, we canceled that flight we will need to book you on another flight" You've got to be kidding me!!! We needed to be in Philly by 6:00pm (eastern time) because C has a dinner with the Residents at U-Penn. The only flight they can book us on now leaves at 10:00am (mind you it is 7:00am so we get to wait a long time) and we will change planes in LAX and then get to PHL at about 9:00pm (eastern time).
(3) C and I determined we had no other choice. It would cost us more money to switch airlines and since we already broke the bank on these trips - we had to suck it up. But why did they cancel our NON-STOP flight to PHL you ask? Because there was some bad weather in PHL and none of the planes arrived in OAK the night before. They didn't have any planes so it was the obvious choice to cancel our flight. ARGHHHH!!! So We get our boarding passes and go over to the security line. We hand the lady our ID's and boarding passes and she told us we had to go to the 'special' line marked S because we had SSSSS on our boarding pass. That's right - we had been 'radnomly' chosen to be frisked. Yes we got the pat down and everything...they dumped my bag out and search every last content and went through all my cd's - JOY!
(4) So finally we get past security and C and I decide to kill time and get some breakfast...it wasn't too bad. At about 8:45am we head over to our gate. Announcement over loudspeaker "Attention all passengers on flight 1681 to LAX - there has been a gate change you will now be leaving from gate 20." We were at gate 25 but it was a little hike to gate 20. Finally we start boarding around 9:45am. We get our seats towards the front becuase we have a connection in LAX at 12:50pm. Sit down and wait...10:00 am comes and goes (we were supposed to take off by then). What is the problem you ask? Well Southwest doesn't know either! They explained that they were having 'mechanical difficulties' and promised that within 10 minutes they will have 'figured' out what the problem was. 10 minutes goes by - we are in the process of determining the problem please hang on and we will let you know. 5 minutes later we are told that we have to get off the plane and board another plane so procede to gate 24. OH MY GOD! You've got to be kidding me.
(5) We finally get on our plane and take off for LAX by 11:00am and we are now going to have about 20 minutes to get to our next gate before we board for PHL. So much for a nice sit down lunch (since we will arrive in PHL so late we were not going to be eating dinner). McDonald's it is then.
(6) At LAX in line for our next flight (Southwest is first come first serve on seating - so people get in line early) we think we will be boarding soon so C gets us some food while I wait in line. 12:30 comes and goes...and we still have yet to start boarding. This is weird, I thoguht, I wonder what is going on, We are supposed to take off at 12:50. 12:50 and Announcement - "We are waiting for the Pilots please stand by and we will begin boarding as soon as they get here". WHAT?! No Pilots, where could they be??!! Well they were on other flights and they had schduling conflicts so they were shuffling staff around. OK...we see a pilot go through the gate and people clap...Annoucement - "That was just the Pilot, we are still waiting for the co-pilot he should be here in about 10 minutes he is coming from Salt Lake City."
(7) They begin to board us 10 minutes later (still no co-pilot) and we sit and finally the co-pilot boards and says "So much for my Starbucks" but just before he finished saying that a Flight Attendend comes flying down the ailse screaming..."OH my god a baby just had diarrhea all over the bathroom in and I just walked in it and it is in my brand new shoes and all over me...it is all in the carpet we have to do someting....ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" She flipped out and ran off the plane. C and I couldn't help but laugh at this - what else could possibly go wrong. Then we waited about 1/2 hour so while the cleaning crew got to the plan and cleaned it all up. Flight attendent still flipping out - Co-Pilot gets his starbucks! Needless to say we didn't leave until almost 1:30 and now we will get to PHL by 9:45 pm (eastern time).
Please note all times listed above are Pacific times unless otherwise specified!
(8) Back in EST - we finally get to our hotel in Philly and go right to sleep because we need to get up at 6:00am so C can finish his last an final interview at U-Penn. And now for the icing on the cake - to finish off the end of our trip - about 5:00am the hotel alarm goes off and very loud on the speakers OVER our BED in our ROOM...we heard for 10 minutes "Attention, Attention there is an emergency alert inside the building - DO NOT use the Elevator and DO NOT go into the stairwell - Please stand by for further instructions" over and over again...when it finally stopped a hotel employee came over the speakers and told us they determined there was no need to evacuate.
Did someone burn some toast? Did the hotel receptionist break a nail? Did some baby shit all over the lobby or did someone just pull the fire alarm? Who sets of a fire alarm at 5am???!!!
So that concluded our trip I swear to you that I did not make this up and YES I know I could've told it in less than 5 sentences but then it wouldn't be a Pam story! Ding! You're now free to move about the country! Maybe...
1 comment:
So Pam,
How was the trip?
:)
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