October 15/12

AAAAAANNNNDDD cue travel.

It seems to be a tradition these days that when I travel, I come back sick.  This spring, while in Phoenix, I caught the flu from hell, and had to fly back with a wicked-bad fever, aches, pains, and bad lethargy.  Before that it was Vancouver and a cold, and before that Fort Lauderdale and a virus of some kind.

So it should come as no surprise that I woke up at 5 am this morning feeling slow.  I put it down to being tired and getting up so early.  We were off to the airport by 6 am, and our journey began.  Through Swiss security and passport control, across France and the English Channel to Heathrow. 

This time, we had a two hour layover, so the panic was not a factor, but this time we were traveling on American Airlines, which meant we had to check in again to get on our flight to Chicago.  Change terminals, through security (AGAIN), on the flight for NINE hours, and this time, that rickety old plane only had four screens and played two movies (Men In Black III and Margin Call) which I wasn't interested in.  I prefer being able to choose on my own personal in-flight entertainment system built into the headrest of the seat in front of me.  But I had a bigger problem to deal with: a nasal drip and stuffed sinuses from hell!  Nine hours of it!  Those little barf bags the airlines provide?  I filled mine with used tissues.  So gross. 

The worst part is that I had personally contacted the airline weeks ago to order the Gluten-Free meals for Etienne, but I had a bad feeling when I did, because the chatty girl at the other end of the AA call centre didn't know what Gluten-Free was, and spent half the call telling me about her friend who has an eating disorder.  As I suspected, American Airlines fucked up, and Etienne was given regular meals, which he could only eat a small part of.  HUGE fail, American Airlines.  A nine-hour flight with almost no food?  You'll be getting a complaint.

In Chicago, we faced only a 1.5 hour layover, during which time, we were supposed to get through customs, get our bags, check in (AGAIN), drop off our bags, change terminals, go through security (AGAIN), and haul ass to the very farthest gate possible.  The only saving grace is that American Airlines has designed a fairly sophisticated system for shuttling passengers with fairly tight connections through all of this, but not without a few hiccups: we whizzed past the line-ups through customs, but had to wait 15 minutes for our bags; then we whizzed through check in and bag drop, only to be stopped by the wait for the tram that goes between terminals.  Once at the new terminal, we are whizzed past the huge line up for security, but they only had two screening points open, so we had to wait and wait and wait our turn.  After we get through security, we were on our own, so we race to the far end of the terminal to our gate, with about 5 minutes to spare.  So well done American Airlines...sort of.

In two short hours, we were finally back in Ottawa, but the long flights played havoc with my knee, which swelled up and stiffened so much I couldn't walk properly.  We were through customs quickly and on our way home to be reunited with our precious baby kitties!

Coming home to Max and Princess Purrball...

...Wish you were here.