The return trip goes right up there with the Polish flight from hell that Michael and I experienced coming back from our honeymoon.
Our final night in Spain I was so freaked out about not getting up in time to catch the 6:00 am Metro that took us to the train that took us to the bus that took us to the airport where we had to catch our flights. Barcelona to Madrid, then from Madrid to Chicago, and then another flight from Chicago to Denver.... That I didn't sleep a wink. Yet I wasn't too worried, because I could just sleep in one of those flights.
The flight from Barcelona to Madrid was only and hour so I figure I got 30 minutes. The looong 9 hour flight from Madrid to Chicago had some drunk people laughing and shouting in Spanish right behind us the entire flight, so I think I maybe got an hour at best, and not consecutively mind you.
Then... And here's the fun part... after traveling already for 14 hours on no sleep for over 24 hours, we arrive at O'Hare just in time to run from the International concourse to the domestic concourse to make our final connecting flight after passing through customs with no issues. (For anyone who is not familiar with O'Hare, the International terminal is approx 54 miles away from the domestic terminal.) We made it just in the nick of time to hear that announcement that All American Airlines flights have been grounded by the FAA and to get on a phone ASAP to try to get another flight out. Yeah, we were one of those lucky people! Michael and Deana get involved in horrible phone calls that got us nowhere, while Jay and I waited in line at the gate to try to talk to the very stressed out gate agent. We finally get re-booked on a flight that evening to depart at 9:40pm. Oh I forgot to mention that this was at about 3:30 so that gave us 6 fun-filled hours to kill.
We arrived at our appointed gate with enough time before boarding to find out that the flight is delayed. Then they changed the gate # to the other end of the terminal. Then the flight got delayed another hour. And then they changed the gate # yet again, and then the flight got erased from the board entirely several times. When we finally got a confirmed gate D, M and J all fell asleep, but I was too freaked out to, so I stayed awake like a zombie. Our flight that was supposed to leave at 9:40 pm finally left at 12:45 am. I think I slept for 20 minutes on the final flight. Luckily I fell right asleep when we finally got home at 4am and pretty much slept the entire next day. I tried to force myself to stay awake for a couple of hours in the evening, and couldn't do it.
Oh and another fun fact, they lost our luggage. So when they thankfully found it two days later, they delivered it to my house (the front porch) in a full on snow storm. I had to go home from work to put them inside so they wouldn't get completely ruined.
I have learned that these crazy stressful situations are just par for the course when travelling overseas, and there isn't much that you can do other than roll with the punches.
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FANTASTIC!! Some of those shots are beyond frame worthy and shoud be in a magazine. The tale alone should be in some taveloge,blog, SOMETHING. While I'm aure there were times you vowed to never leave the house again, in the end, a much more interesting story than: "We went to Spain. It did rain mainly on the plain. Lovely time. We ate ham." It was worth the wait to hear about it.
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