Waking Up in Oz

A little over a year ago, I had both the best and worst travel experience of my life. I’d been pretty fortunate in my travels, never lost a bag, never had too much of a delay, and never missed a flight (knocking on a big ass piece of wood right now). My awesome luck ran out last summer after the best trip of my life. It went a little like this…

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My initial flight out of Greece was canceled after sitting on the plane for 3 hours on the runway. I had a feeling things were doomed when, while we were getting off the plane, a teenage boy with some type of social disorder pointed at me and yelled “it’s your fault the plane’s broken!” He may have been right, it was downhill from there. The next day, our flight out was once again canceled. Mind you, it was 4th of July and we booked a hotel in Philadelphia for the night so we could celebrate before flying home to Florida the next day… yeah, that didn’t happen.

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After the 2nd attempt out of Greece was thwarted, we decided to cancel our ticket with US Airways and buy another ticket with Delta. During this whole debacle we were set up with all expenses paid at the 5-star Athens Sofitel. It really doesn’t matter how nice your hotel is when you’re 1) suffering from the plague after 2 straight weeks of drinking and 2) broke and a 30-minute cab ride away from Athens. Plus the hotel only had an indoor pool, so any efforts to preserve our tans would be limited to walking across the street to the airport and laying out on the tarmac. I was over the whole not being able to flush toilet paper thing (yup, T.P. cannot go into the toilet in Greece… gross but true). Although I did break that rule a few times without consequence, which is surprising since nothing sends me into a panic quite like the moment the water begins rising in the toilet. I was also out of clean clothes, which was a problem since the hotel’s laundry service charged $5 for a pair of underwear.

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On day 3 of our attempt to leave, we watched as the US Airways flight we canceled actually left, while meanwhile our Delta flight was delayed several hours. FML. We did finally get in the air that day, but the delay made us miss our connecting flight from New York to Florida and we had to once again spend a night in a hotel (a very, very sketchy hotel).

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I kept a journal for the first part of the trip while I was still somewhat coherent. I’d also written down contact info for a few of my new friends. Yesterday  when I pulled out the journal to find Teneal and Layne’s address (they’re the awesome couple taking me in when I arrive in Oz) I came across the delirious log I kept of our airport fiasco. Here’s the last 2 days, exactly as I wrote it but with additional comments by me in italics:

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Sunday, July 6

Athens, Greece

6:45 a.m. wake up call

7:15 free breakfast

7:30 arrive airport, fuck everyone, we’re going in the business class line

8:00 checked in. Go to US Air to cancel our flights. They’re retarded and pretend they’ve never heard of the passenger rights document. The give us some B.S. sheet about luggage (?).

9:45 arrive @ gate (A20 – oh no!) A20 is the gate we’d been scheduled to fly out of the previous two days

10:00 told our flight is delayed until 2:30

12:30 p.m. US Air flight takes off – FUCKIN A!!!

1:30 get our seats assigned, told we will miss our connecting flight and have to stay overnight in NY. I don’t care as long as I can flush T.P.

2:15 told we will prob make flight. board plane. We have front row! Tons of room. Kerry & Kelly = happy

3:10 Take off

6:45 p.m. Eastern time Land, have to sit on runway then take people mover to terminal

7:10 Get bags, go thru customs

7:15 miss our connecting flight

7:15- 9:00 wait in line to find out about our accommodations. We’re the only friendly people.

9:30 Arrive at piece of shit airport Ramada. Don’t want to touch anything. We are given $7 vouchers for dinner. Nothing in restaurant is under $14. Welcome to New York. We order pizza and pass out. I don’t shower (EW)

Monday, July 7

New York

5:30 a.m. wake up

5:45 $7 voucher for breakfast that only allows us coffee and tea!! Apples are in glass cases.

6:15 Arrive JFK. Kelly tries to talk her way into first class. “I’ve been wearing the same pants for 3 days” does not get us in. “You can’t flush T.P. in Greece” doesn’t work either.

That’s where it ends. We finally made it home around 11:30 a.m. This is hilarious in retrospect, but at the time I’d never been happier to see home.