Friday, February 14, 2014

Staking Out


             I’ve come to the conclusion that traveling is simply waiting. You wait to get on a plane, then wait until that plane takes you to your destination, and then wait for the next one. The vicious cycle repeats itself until the journey’s end!

 At the moment I’ve set up camp in the Brisbane International Airport. The flights all have gone incredibly smooth with no worries! Although, a fun fact that I’d like to share from my last flight is that first class has these amazing seats that recline almost to the point of being parallel to the floor! No, I didn’t fly first- class but I was sitting in the row right behind first- class and had the pleasure of having a nice, elderly gentleman sleeping in my lap for fifteen and a half hours! My favorite part was when he asked me to move my knees because they were in his way. For those of you that know me, you know that with being five feet tall, it’s nearly impossible for my knees to be in anyone’s way while sitting! Oh well, his snoring was actually quite soothing.

So far, all the airline personnel have been amazing. Whenever I had a question, they were very kind in answering or finding out the answer for me if they didn’t know. Nothing too interesting has happened thus far. Ooo! Except for when I was in line at customer service in Chicago. A multitude of flights destined for the east coast were cancelled due to weather so the line was about a two- hour wait. At the end of the line, there was a girl who looked my age in military uniform. She was on the phone and sobbing hysterically. I couldn’t really understand what she was saying on the phone seeing as I was at about the halfway point in the line. The lady that was waiting ahead of me and I were talking about what might the problem be and she decided to let the girl cut ahead of her and asked if I would be okay with that. Of course I responded along the lines of “heck yes!” So we get the girl up to where we were and she tells us that she was coming home on leave to see her husband before he was deployed overseas. (He was a Marine and she was in the Army.) She only had three days until he left and her flight to Charlotte had gotten cancelled with the next available flight not until Monday morning- (effectively cutting out about half of her three available days.) Isn’t this story just awful? As she was telling us this a man who was a couple people behind us came up to her and told her that everything was going to be okay and that they were going to fix things. Turns out, this guy was a retired Marine and let’s just say, he got the problem sorted out real quick-like. Within 10 minutes of him talking to United Airlines personnel, they had a seat for her to meet her husband in Atlanta, a ticket for him from wherever he was to also get to Atlanta, and a hotel reservation there for the three days. Isn’t that awesome? Kudos to United for being fantastic!

Other than that, nothing has happened worth mentioning yet. Soon I will be boarding a charter bus for 13 hours to Rockhampton. There, a lady from CQU will meet me and take me to campus!

After a while crocodile,

Tina


P.S. The weather here is sunny and humid- it’s about 27 degrees Celsius. That’s about 80 degrees Fahrenheit! Annnndd it’s only nine in the morning.  Sunscreen is one thing I unfortunately neglected to buy- yikes!    

3 comments:

  1. Glad your making it there, love the story about her and her husband!!!!

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  2. Glad your trip is going well Tina! Good luck at school!

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  3. Thanks Bri! Hopefully everything is going well for you too:)

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