Greetings and salutations to all of you... I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday (because mine sucked eggs--more on that later). I have returned from my "I'm living in a different place this week" trip and it was terrific. This is my seventh trip to Aruba and let me tell you it never gets old. It was great hanging with the NY friends (it always is) and I had a blast.
It didn't start out that way, however. As many of you know, I have to book my Aruba trip a year in advance so that I can stay at my resort. I also made airline arrangements well in advance to take advantage of a terrific deal. The original plan called for me to leave Phoenix at 3pm on Thanksgiving Day and fly through Dallas and on to LaGuardia in NY, landing around 12:30 or 1 am on Friday morning. Then I had a 7:30am direct flight to Aruba from JFK. Piece of cake. I would arrive in Aruba around 1:30pm and sleep on the beach until my room was ready. But American Airlines didn't want to have it so easy. They changed my flight to leave Phoenix at noon and I arrived in NY at 9pm. No problem I thought... I'll just check my luggage through and cab into the city and hang until the morning. WRONG! You can't check luggage until the day of your flight (learn something new every day) so I would have to drag my bag around with me until 3:30am and then get in line to check in. So I found a comfortable chair and began the overnight vigil...
I don't know what was worse... the piped in muzak versions of Christmas carols (I now officially hate "O Tannenbaum") or the Latina woman speaking Spanish non-stop from midnight to 3 am. But that combination and the fear of being robbed kept me awake. The airport is eerie overnight. A real collection of characters (including yours truly) inhabit the airport in the wee hours. The zamboni man polishing the floors was entertaining. So there I sat until 3am and the line started to form. I'm glad I was there already, because by 3:45 the line was snaking around and down the corridor. I was fifth in line and didn't get waited on until almost 4 am... (they had 2 people checking in passengers). I checked in, went through security, and then collapsed by the gate to wait for boarding. After 27 hours awake (a new record without the aid of questionable pharmaceuticals) I boarded the plane. I remember the safety instructions and then the next thing I knew we were landing in Aruba. Great flight (I think).
So after collecting my bag and hailing a cab, I was on my way to the beach! When I arrived at the resort, my room was ready so I went there and laid down for a nap... I woke up after midnight, rolled over and went back to sleep. My traditional cigar on the beach at sundown would have to wait until Saturday...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment