Yesterday after a pretty uneventful morning in Costa Rica, we were all ready to come home. I'm always nervous before flights no matter how short. When we loaded onto the plane to Miami for a 2 hour and 22 minute flight I had no clue that my plans for the next 24 hours would drastically change. The pilot announced a few bumps on the way up and said the rest of the flight would be smooth. Boy, do his and mine definitions of a "few bumps" differ! As the plane was going from left to right and up and down, all I could tell myself was that the flight to Spain last year was worse. We eventually evened out and for the next two hours I chatted with two kids from my group. The weather was turning grey and the pilot announced that we will be landing a few minutes late. He then lowered the plane as he were landing but aborted the mission and we took off into the sky. That was a first! Later on he announced that he couldn't see the runway and we will try again later. If you've ever flown with me you know this is pretty much the equivalent of my hell. There is nothing I hate more than flying and I've always said my absolute worst nightmare would be getting dental work done while on a turbulent flight. Try again??? What the hell does that mean?! Why not do it the first time?! I started thinking of all the crashes that have occurred due to bad weather and all the ones we have no clue what happened. Yes, my mind is crazy. This time we were trying from another direction. Before he got too low he changed his mind and we went to Ft Lauderdale. And what a landing that was. Smashed. Fell. Hit. I don't know what we did to that ground but we didn't land gracefully We sat on the ground for an hour awaiting the improvement of Miami's weather. Oh wait, we ran out of gas too! If you know anything South Florida, then you know that Miami is about a 15 minute flight from Ft Lauderdale. We didn't have enough gas to fly for 15 minutes? That's some freaky shit, I bet I'd need two gallons or less of fuel to drive the distance.
As we landed in Miami (only a slightly better version of the prior landing) our flight to SFO has left. For the next seven hours, I worked to reroute 31 people back to SFO. Our group was broken up into three: direct, via LA and via Phoenix. Two adults in my group found a hotel for 31, no easy task on a July 4th weekend. The kids were amazing (at least to my face!), the adults rather frustrating. They didn't like being sent into the passport check line (instead of the computerized version), were tired, needed to know NOW when we were departing and such. I went into complete beast mode. Moving families around the different itineraries, dealing with highly irritated American Airlines workers, parents requesting their kid was on the first flight out, catching kids who were completely deleted from our reservation list and more. By the time we all had our itineraries, it was almost 3 am. Out of 30 people one person said thank you. That stung a bit but I know everyone was exhausted and just too wrapped up in themselves to see what was happening around them.
That night, I got four hours of sleep in four increments: 1 hr, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 1 hour 45 minutes. I met every group in the hotel lobby and got them to the furthest point I could. This let me know that I'd never want be a tour guide and that EF insurance is awful. Why didn't they do all the rerouting? What if I was a group leader who didn't know how to navigate this? Why didn't they book us the hotel? The whole thing was a bit of a nightmare but as usual, all is well that ends well.
Once all the groups were on their way I stayed in Miami. There was little point in flying home just to do laundry and pick up my South Africa bag. Yes, I'll miss the credit cards I specifically got for this trip, warm clothes, my SA book and tampons but life goes on.
Dziugas picked me up from MIA and Innetta and I loaded up the laundry. We had lunch at Whole Foods, I raided the store for winter weather clothes which was no easy task in 1) Florida 2) July. Whatever is missing I can always get on the way but there was no way I was going to sit in the air for extra 9 hours for it.
I got to meet Innetta's daughter for the first time and see her mom and brother. Last time I was in Florida Innetta was pregnant, how am I meeting a three year old?! Time flies.
I went back to the airport, got an upgraded seat on the plane (didn't wear the heels for nothing!) and actually got some sleep in the air. If that isn't a sign of exhaustion I don't know what is.
Hopefully my vacation can officially start now?
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