Well, it's a fair bit after I've travelled now, and I'm no longer jet-lagged, and they let me in. Without (much) hassle, actually. It was a LONG day, though. After saying goodbye to the puppy girl, Mom and Dad drove me up to the Portland airport La Quinta, via Gustav's Restaurant (mmm...fondue and other German tasties!). I got up early and caught the 7am shuttle (I believe) to the airport. The shuttle drive on shift and the one who just got off shift were both along, and the one who had just gotten off was very very friendly and helped me haul my three suitcases to the Southwest counter because he was awesome and didn't feel I needed to pay for either a luggage trolley or the curbside check-in. Then the check-in guy was super awesome and let me leave my carry-on bags with him whilst I hauled my other two bags to the luggage screener (they searched one, I found out later).
Then I sat at the gate. Then I sat on the plane. Then I sat on the plane at the gate in San Jose for my stopover on my way to LAX. THEN I shelled out $4 for a luggage cart (totally worth it, even though it really wasn't big enough). Then I got instructions to the terminal I needed for my Air New Zealand flight. Once there, I waited around for probably 45 minutes for check-in to open up. This was obnoxious, as I arrived at a little before 2pm, and got to the counter (line) by about 2:15, with my flight scheduled for 5pm on the dot. Because it's an international flight, most places recommend 3 hours prior to the flight to check-in. Air NZ didn't open the counter until 3pm. But here's the real catch; Air NZ requires that everyone be checked in an hour before the flight. Which left them only one hour to try and check-in 3/4 of a plane.
Even that withstanding, the real pill of the matter was that, for the first time ever, they weighed my carry-on bag. Carry-on bags are of course subject to size restrictions, but are also subject to weight restrictions, which are rarely enforced (there's actually a fight about that going on right now, between the flight attendant unions, the airlines, and I think the FAA). Yeah. I had to take about 8 pounds out of my carry on bag to get it down to the 15 pounds allowed. Here's the catch: both of my checked bags were at 49+ pounds, with a 50 pound weight limit. But even though I had to repack, and it put my bags over the free limit, the guy was ultimately REALLY nice, and didn't charge me overweight fees. So hassle not withstanding, he rocked. And then a TSA guy grabbed my bags for me to run through the scanner. Yay!
Flight was smooth and nice. Next to no turbulence, and what really was rockin' was the in-flight entertainment. There were--literally--about 100 movies to choose from, and 184 (187?) different TV shows to choose from. Three episodes of Mad Men here, 5 different "Discover NZ" programs there, and about a bajillion other choices. Plus games. AND, it was seat-back on-demand screens, AND AND the system worked from the second you sat down in until the second you got off the plane. I've never seen that before. The food was only ok, but they served free New Zealand wines, and everyone was super friendly. The only boner was that I was seated next to a 2 year old. Or maybe 3 or 4. I dunno. Small and wiggly. But since I think they got on the plane in Auckland, she was pretty well behaved overall. And there was an empty seat between me and her (except for when she was standing in it.
Otherwise, Immigration in London didn't hassle me at all, and Adam eventually met me in arrivals; his train didn't arrive into King's Cross until 20 minutes after I landed, and then he still had an hour on the tube before he got to the airport. I saw him walk up, so I stood up and turned around to put my book away, and he'd gone. Eventually, I found him again; he would like you to believe that he was rescuing orphans from a burning building along with a heroic dog. I think he just didn't want to pay to use the loos in King's Cross (don't blame him). So we made our way back to Heathrow's tube station, I fought and lost with the ticket agent (he saved me money, except he didn't because I had to spend more money to save money, which I didn't want to do because I don't live in London so I don't use my oyster card ever), and we got on the train back into the city. Where we waited for our train back up North. A platform was finally annouced, and 8 bazillion people raced toward it. We got stuck behind a tractor pulling three rubbish bins. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except our train had about 15 cars on it--and ours was the one at the far, far, end of the platform.
Everything was more or less fine on the train. We were in the quiet car, which means no mobile phone useage or the like. There's always one asshole, however. Other than the jackass, we got to Wakefield Westgate fine. That's when my anger took over. You see, Wakefield Westgate is a small, shitty train station. It is also, however, a fairly major change point. It also doesn't have lifts. And they regularly change which platform your train will be on at the last moment. Remember how I said I had two suitcases over 50 pounds each? plus my rolling carry on (about 17 pounds--the dude took pity on me) and my laptop case. Oh, and no lifts. We came in on platform 2, and were to leave from platform 1. So we hauled all my shit up and over. And then, when they annouced our platform change due to a late train, we did it all again, nearly missing out train. I really hate that place, as this is the second time it's happened to me, and it's happened to Adam before as well.
Barring all that though, we made our train (barely, as the platform conductor was calling it as we came off the stairs) and then had to haul our stuff down and up stairs in Huddersfield to get out of the station, where Tony picked us up and took us home the long way. He and Pam had also offered to take us out for supper, but that was not gonna happen. So Adam made me frozen pizza and held me while I slept on the couch to a movie. Very sweet. Until I woke up drooling. Adam laughed. I went back to sleep.
Then I sat at the gate. Then I sat on the plane. Then I sat on the plane at the gate in San Jose for my stopover on my way to LAX. THEN I shelled out $4 for a luggage cart (totally worth it, even though it really wasn't big enough). Then I got instructions to the terminal I needed for my Air New Zealand flight. Once there, I waited around for probably 45 minutes for check-in to open up. This was obnoxious, as I arrived at a little before 2pm, and got to the counter (line) by about 2:15, with my flight scheduled for 5pm on the dot. Because it's an international flight, most places recommend 3 hours prior to the flight to check-in. Air NZ didn't open the counter until 3pm. But here's the real catch; Air NZ requires that everyone be checked in an hour before the flight. Which left them only one hour to try and check-in 3/4 of a plane.
Even that withstanding, the real pill of the matter was that, for the first time ever, they weighed my carry-on bag. Carry-on bags are of course subject to size restrictions, but are also subject to weight restrictions, which are rarely enforced (there's actually a fight about that going on right now, between the flight attendant unions, the airlines, and I think the FAA). Yeah. I had to take about 8 pounds out of my carry on bag to get it down to the 15 pounds allowed. Here's the catch: both of my checked bags were at 49+ pounds, with a 50 pound weight limit. But even though I had to repack, and it put my bags over the free limit, the guy was ultimately REALLY nice, and didn't charge me overweight fees. So hassle not withstanding, he rocked. And then a TSA guy grabbed my bags for me to run through the scanner. Yay!
Flight was smooth and nice. Next to no turbulence, and what really was rockin' was the in-flight entertainment. There were--literally--about 100 movies to choose from, and 184 (187?) different TV shows to choose from. Three episodes of Mad Men here, 5 different "Discover NZ" programs there, and about a bajillion other choices. Plus games. AND, it was seat-back on-demand screens, AND AND the system worked from the second you sat down in until the second you got off the plane. I've never seen that before. The food was only ok, but they served free New Zealand wines, and everyone was super friendly. The only boner was that I was seated next to a 2 year old. Or maybe 3 or 4. I dunno. Small and wiggly. But since I think they got on the plane in Auckland, she was pretty well behaved overall. And there was an empty seat between me and her (except for when she was standing in it.
Otherwise, Immigration in London didn't hassle me at all, and Adam eventually met me in arrivals; his train didn't arrive into King's Cross until 20 minutes after I landed, and then he still had an hour on the tube before he got to the airport. I saw him walk up, so I stood up and turned around to put my book away, and he'd gone. Eventually, I found him again; he would like you to believe that he was rescuing orphans from a burning building along with a heroic dog. I think he just didn't want to pay to use the loos in King's Cross (don't blame him). So we made our way back to Heathrow's tube station, I fought and lost with the ticket agent (he saved me money, except he didn't because I had to spend more money to save money, which I didn't want to do because I don't live in London so I don't use my oyster card ever), and we got on the train back into the city. Where we waited for our train back up North. A platform was finally annouced, and 8 bazillion people raced toward it. We got stuck behind a tractor pulling three rubbish bins. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except our train had about 15 cars on it--and ours was the one at the far, far, end of the platform.
Everything was more or less fine on the train. We were in the quiet car, which means no mobile phone useage or the like. There's always one asshole, however. Other than the jackass, we got to Wakefield Westgate fine. That's when my anger took over. You see, Wakefield Westgate is a small, shitty train station. It is also, however, a fairly major change point. It also doesn't have lifts. And they regularly change which platform your train will be on at the last moment. Remember how I said I had two suitcases over 50 pounds each? plus my rolling carry on (about 17 pounds--the dude took pity on me) and my laptop case. Oh, and no lifts. We came in on platform 2, and were to leave from platform 1. So we hauled all my shit up and over. And then, when they annouced our platform change due to a late train, we did it all again, nearly missing out train. I really hate that place, as this is the second time it's happened to me, and it's happened to Adam before as well.
Barring all that though, we made our train (barely, as the platform conductor was calling it as we came off the stairs) and then had to haul our stuff down and up stairs in Huddersfield to get out of the station, where Tony picked us up and took us home the long way. He and Pam had also offered to take us out for supper, but that was not gonna happen. So Adam made me frozen pizza and held me while I slept on the couch to a movie. Very sweet. Until I woke up drooling. Adam laughed. I went back to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment