Bursting with the excitment of heading of not just a trip, but a solo trip for work, and anxiety, as I haven’t seen many of my co-workers for almost a decade, I had no idea of just how the adventure would turn out. Would my pre-work weekend of fun in the sun be rained out? Or would I find myself stuck in a hotel room for hours and hours waiting for the rain to stop so I could see the sights that I had been planning to see?
My first mistake – I completely forgot about the “new” international terminal at the Atlanta airport and that I might be flying out of it. Thankfully, I always build in enough time and the transfer was easy. Our plane was a giant one – a Boeing 747. And entirely full. As drinks were being served, the man next to me ended up with two glasses of wine just as we hit some bad turbulence. He couldn’t keep them both from spilling, so one glass spilled all over my neck pillow. But I probably wouldn’t have gotten much use out of it anyway as after his fourth glass of wine, he had to get up to use the restroom once an hour, making me have to keep hopping up and down.
The skies were foggy over Amsterdam as we came to land, so we circled and circled. We manged to land on time, and entry into Schengen was quite easy. I enjoyed walking through Schipol to my gate for the flight to Nice. I had no idea that I would be spending the next eight hours in Schipol. As soon as the flight was cancelled, I moved quickly to the transfer station and stood in a very short line. I was told to use the “blue machines”. the blue machine only offered to upgrade my seat on the now cancelled flight. Not much help. So I went back to the line which had now grown to be extremely long. After an hour, I had only moved a quarter of the way to the front. Because of the fog, many, many flights had been cancelled and hundreds of people were trying to rebook.
I was finally told to move from that line to Transfer 6 – which meant leaving Schegen, making it my shortest trip to Europe ever. At Transfer 6, I was given a number and told to wait. After waiting an hour, I noticed on my Delta app that I had been rebooked to Nice, via Heathrow. Heathrow! I have never been to London, not even to change planes! When I went to the agent to ask for confirmation before I left the holding pen, people were mad at me – I had my number and I was slowing them down from getting theirs! Idiots. If I left the holding pen, they’d get in and get help faster. Duh.
So now with 5 hours to kill, I found a quiet spot and started to figure out the next step. I’d be arriving in Nice too late for the bus to Cannes. What to do? Thankfully, my co-worker was free that evening and would meet me in Nice and take me to the hotel. Then I went to find some breakfast/lunch. I had skipped the breakfast on the plane as I wasn’t hungry, but now that it was noon, I was ready for something. I picked out some fruit, cheese and crackers and found another quiet spot. So quiet that the airport mouse was there, filling up on dropped crumbs.
The flight to London was interesting. the skies were clear and I had a view of the countryside and even London itself. The kid next to me was flying back to England from South Africa so he could sit his exams and was happy to point out all sorts of different things to me. We soon realized we were traveling in a circle – yet another holding pattern. After landing at Heathrow, I took a bus to my departure terminal and then had to go through security. I hadn’t planned on going through security again, so it was a bit complicated as I had to rearrage my things. Once through I had ten minutes — I ran into a gift shop and picked up a few things. I was in London!
It was a mad dash to the gate when the gate was finally posted on the board. A long walk, a train, and more walking. amazingly, though the plane was full otherwise, the window seat next to me was unoccupied. I moved over and watched the sunset over London. In Nice, my friend was there – we had never met, so I had trouble finding her at first, but she was there! The rain was coming down as we walked to her car. In Cannes, we had trouble getting to the hotel because of construction, but I was finally there and checked-in.
In the room, I realized that the trouble I had with the bag outside the hotel was that the wheel had fallen off. All those transfers and security and the rest, and it waited until right outside the hotel to break. I loved that suitcase – it went to Mexico, Turkey, Greece, Amsterdam, Ireland, and all over the US with me. I’ll miss it terribly, but the idea of hauling a suitcase with one wheel through 3 public transit systems, four airports and city streets was making me want to cry. So I knew that I would have to buy a new one in Cannes and say goodbye to my faithful friend.
