Once again my vacation is over. A lot of stuff happened when I was in Florida this time. Problems with my flight on the way there, problems on the way back. Hurt my back when I was there. Got bit by mosquitos again. Visited St. Augustine, got hit by the outer parts of hurricane Dennis. In short: I can’t say I was bored or anything. If anything else I was a bit frustrated.
This time I flew with KLM (the Dutch company that has been in business since the 1920’s) because I had so many Airmiles left. The flight was about 299 Euros, but the tax was another 120 Euros. That is outrageous: one third of my ticket was taxes! I must say the service from KLM is much better than Delta’s. For instance: they serve way better food and drinks (alcoholic beverages are free!). Also I booked a return flight with Delta Airlines from Atlanta to Tallahassee. It seemed like a good idea when I did that, but on the way back it was pain in the ass.
Flat tire?
But off course there had to be an incident on the way to Florida. The pilot aborted the take-off! Right before we got up he braked like crazy! Not good! Even though I hate flying, I was not worried about it (which is the good). Then the captain announced why he aborted the take-off: some warning light (he called it “a nuisance light”) came on telling him that we had a flat tire. Not good!
Now I started to worry about my connection in Atlanta: this kind of stuff usually takes hours (or so I thought). But lucky us, after about 10 minutes and a close inspection it turned out to be a false alarm and we tried again: no problems there! After a good flight (sitting next to a US marine Guy that came back from Kabul, Afghanistan and watching Million Dollar Babies) we landed in time and I was ready for the usual stuff: immigration and customs.
It was a bit different this time though. Right when I stepped out the plane we had a passport control (Huh? Never had that before). Also the lines for immigration were packed. I got ID-ed, fingerprinted and photographed. After that it was a smooth ride. I even got to Tallahassee early. In fact my girlfriend wasn’t there yet, so I had to call her (guess that my visits are a routine now).
Back pains
The next day, Sunday, we planned our trip to St. Augustine: we booked the hotel, booked a rental car; all online. I just love the Internet. The next day however, I hurt my back. It was as if someone stabbed me with a knife or something. Really scary! We left anyway (it was my decision to go to St. Augustine) and had a few cool days (except for the rain and the bikers that seemed to have some convention at the motel). St. Augustine is a nice place but didn’t impress me as much.
During that next week (Carrie had to go to work again) my back pain got less (although with certain moves, it still hurts) and I lounged a lot in Carrie’s pool. By the way: having a pool is a lot of work. It’s like being a chemist all the time (measuring the pH, chlorine and other stuff) and you have to clean the pool all the time. I saw a lot of movies too: Star Wars Revenge of the Sith Lords, Batman Begins (awesome!), Bewitched, War of the Worlds, and the Fantastic Four. All of them were cool movies. And then, before I knew it: it was time to go back home.
Hurricane Dennis
Now, by that time (my last weekend) hurricane Dennis was approaching the Gulf coast. So the weather was turning bad. It started to rain really badly (a couple of inches in one night) so we had to drain the pool a bit. Also we had some tornado warnings during the nights. All new to me: we have bad storms in Holland, but I never worry about them since I live in a concrete, steel reinforced apartment. But in my girlfriend’s house it’s a different story altogether.
So I left on Monday. The storm had passed Tallahassee and all seemed well. Dennis had hit Pensacola and there was flooding of St. Marks (20 miles from Tallahassee), but other then that: no casualties. I checked in through the website of Delta and KLM and printed my boarding passes. But then the trouble started.
Delays and more delays
I was scheduled to leave at 1:40pm. We were at the airport around 12:30pm or so. More than enough time. I said goodbye to Carrie and went through security and all. Once at the gate it said that we got pushed back to 2:30pm because of bad weather in Atlanta. Hmmm… That sucked, but I still would have enough time for my 6:20pm flight with KLM, right? Wrong! We kept getting more and more delays and we didn’t leave until 4:45pm.
To top things off we had to fly a holding pattern once we got to Atlanta. I was getting more and more frustrated: it was already 5:50 or so and I could only hope that the KLM flight was delayed also. Finally we landed at 6:20pm! And I rushed out the plane, rushed to the baggage terminal to get my luggage (it was there when I got there) and rushed to the KLM/Northwestern desk. Missed my plane allright!
Damn, that was a big bummer! I spend the night in a Best Western motel and called KLM. After being on hold for more then 30 minutes they put me on the nest flight on Tuesday. No extra costs there. Next time I will just rent a car or something: then I can just drive to Atlanta.
Anyway: the next day I checked out at 11:30am, got at the airport at 12:10pm. The KLM desk was deserted and I had to wait till 2:30 before I could check in. Then I had to go through security checks. Man, it was outrageous: there was a line that filled the whole atrium! It took over 30 minutes to get through it. Ridiculous! It was probably because of the bombings in London earlier that week. But how can anyone get to a plane in time like that?
I had lunch at the Peking Express (General Tsao Chicken with Lo Mein: I loved it), wandered around the tax free shops and then flew out. Lucky me: I had an isle seat this time. Off course I could not sleep at all and it was one of the more uncomfortable flights I had in a while (God, I hate flying).
I landed safe, got everything within 30 minutes (a first at Schiphol), got checked by customs (must have been the fact that I travel alone) and met my sister at the gate. She drove me home where I unpacked and then crashed for an hour or two.
All in all I have rather mixed feelings about his vacation this time; mostly because of more personal reasons. We’ll see what happens next time.