The South American Adventure - Day 1!!
Day 1 - The Sardine, The Kids and the Sweaty Arm Hair
The day finally arrived. The one we'd been planning for the last seven or eight months. It started early enough, as all trips do. The early alarm. The snooze button. The freak out that I might have overslept (as I seem to do every morning these days). Then it's the last minute cramming crap into bags. I had already been stressed out over the packing. There was nothing much I could do at this point. And soon enough, Dad was at the house and we were on the way to O'Hare.
Spirit Airlines. I hadn't been on Spirit before. I had no idea what to expect. The first bit of news was great. We'd both been stressing over the 40 pound luggage limit. Adele bought a scale for the other legs of our trip. I weighed my bag on the ConAir scale at home. With two bottles of water, my luggage weighed in at 37 pounds. You know what?? 37 pounds is freaking heavy!! Thank god I wasn't trying to carry on this luggage, cause I wouldn't have been able to lift it of the ground. The best news was that we bought out tickets early enough that our luggage was grandfathered in. We got 50 pounds to use!! That's 13 pounds of souvenirs to be bought!! And 50 pounds of a suitcase to maneuver during the next 15 days. Wait. I don't care for that too much.
Adele and I were able to get seats in the front of the plane and next to each other. Good news, since we didn't want to spend the extra few bucks to pick our seats when we bought the tickets (snerk...pick our seats...yes, I am 12). Luckily, we didn't have to it for too long for our flight. And we were in lovely ignorance for a short amount of time. Cause soon, we would learn the horrible truth.
The plane was a sardine can.
Seriously, we've both flown in small planes before. This plane wasn't necessarily small. It was just crammed with seats and people. We found our row pretty quickly. And I apologized to the dude I was going to sit next to, "Thought you were going to have a row by yourself, huh?? Sorry, Dude." I was in the middle seat. Adele was in the window. And Dude was in the aisle. And there was no room to move a muscle. One of my first comments to Adele, "Thank God for Weight Watchers". Cause 85 pounds would have been significantly more difficult.
We were in a tentatively decent relationship here. Not much chatter (though Dude and I shared knowing glances at our iPads). Soon though, the silence was shattered. Though really, there was never any silence. The plane people were obnoxious from the start. And by plane people, it was every freaking person on the plane. When a flight attendant has to tell people to shut up to listen to the safety instructions, it is a problem. And behind us as the Kicky Family. The kid behind Adele was kicking the seats, being generally loud and playing with Hot Wheels or something. I tried to zone out, but I had my own plane traumas.
The Dude and I were jockeying for arm rest space. Or I guess, I wasn't really trying. I did what I like to do on the train when someone is taking up my personal space...not say a word and try to take up as little space as humanly possible. Yes, wuss out. So I'm there, not saying anything and trying to not to get in his way. The problem...a sardine airplane. And he was working on his iPad. So his left arm was at an angle and mostly resting on my arm. The first time, I thought it was accidental, so I didn't think much about it, then I realized it was going to keep happening. And there's was nothing I could do about it cause I was too much of a wuss. To make matters worse, his arm was highly sweaty and exceptionally hairy. Awesome. I was almost in Adele's lap by the end of the flight...which could not come soon enough.
We thought we'd have a ton of everything to choose from in Ft Lauderdale. Um...no. Maybe 10 gates and only one place to find wine. Argh!! I just needed wine after the first leg of the flight. Cause Spirit was a huge letdown and we still had three more legs to go with them. And to make things even more fun, our flight to Lima was delayed. Nice.
Wine was found. And so were donuts. So the wait wasn't too bad. But the flight did keep getting more and more delayed. The hotel was alerted. All we could do was wait.
I think we both were worried about the flight to Lima as we boarded the plane. Definitely no need to worry this time. Must be the international plane, cause we had tons of room and the seats actually reclined (they definitely didn't on the first leg). Even better, we didn't have a third person in the row with us!! Things were looking up!!
It did take a bit of time to get off the ground, and now instead of getting in around 10p, we are going to arrive in the 1a timeframe. Should be fun. The hope is that the car from the hotel will still be around. Hey, we did tell them our flight number and that the flight was delayed.
Happily, the flight was long, but uneventful. We haven't quite figured out the time zone. We thought it was Eastern, but maybe it's Central?? The iPad says one thing. The cell phone says another. We think it's actually Central, so that should ultimately help with the jet lag. Then again, its almost 3a as I'm typing this. The exhaustion will be in existence no matter what.
Too tired for hotel info. More tomorrow.
The day finally arrived. The one we'd been planning for the last seven or eight months. It started early enough, as all trips do. The early alarm. The snooze button. The freak out that I might have overslept (as I seem to do every morning these days). Then it's the last minute cramming crap into bags. I had already been stressed out over the packing. There was nothing much I could do at this point. And soon enough, Dad was at the house and we were on the way to O'Hare.
Spirit Airlines. I hadn't been on Spirit before. I had no idea what to expect. The first bit of news was great. We'd both been stressing over the 40 pound luggage limit. Adele bought a scale for the other legs of our trip. I weighed my bag on the ConAir scale at home. With two bottles of water, my luggage weighed in at 37 pounds. You know what?? 37 pounds is freaking heavy!! Thank god I wasn't trying to carry on this luggage, cause I wouldn't have been able to lift it of the ground. The best news was that we bought out tickets early enough that our luggage was grandfathered in. We got 50 pounds to use!! That's 13 pounds of souvenirs to be bought!! And 50 pounds of a suitcase to maneuver during the next 15 days. Wait. I don't care for that too much.
Adele and I were able to get seats in the front of the plane and next to each other. Good news, since we didn't want to spend the extra few bucks to pick our seats when we bought the tickets (snerk...pick our seats...yes, I am 12). Luckily, we didn't have to it for too long for our flight. And we were in lovely ignorance for a short amount of time. Cause soon, we would learn the horrible truth.
The plane was a sardine can.
Seriously, we've both flown in small planes before. This plane wasn't necessarily small. It was just crammed with seats and people. We found our row pretty quickly. And I apologized to the dude I was going to sit next to, "Thought you were going to have a row by yourself, huh?? Sorry, Dude." I was in the middle seat. Adele was in the window. And Dude was in the aisle. And there was no room to move a muscle. One of my first comments to Adele, "Thank God for Weight Watchers". Cause 85 pounds would have been significantly more difficult.
We were in a tentatively decent relationship here. Not much chatter (though Dude and I shared knowing glances at our iPads). Soon though, the silence was shattered. Though really, there was never any silence. The plane people were obnoxious from the start. And by plane people, it was every freaking person on the plane. When a flight attendant has to tell people to shut up to listen to the safety instructions, it is a problem. And behind us as the Kicky Family. The kid behind Adele was kicking the seats, being generally loud and playing with Hot Wheels or something. I tried to zone out, but I had my own plane traumas.
The Dude and I were jockeying for arm rest space. Or I guess, I wasn't really trying. I did what I like to do on the train when someone is taking up my personal space...not say a word and try to take up as little space as humanly possible. Yes, wuss out. So I'm there, not saying anything and trying to not to get in his way. The problem...a sardine airplane. And he was working on his iPad. So his left arm was at an angle and mostly resting on my arm. The first time, I thought it was accidental, so I didn't think much about it, then I realized it was going to keep happening. And there's was nothing I could do about it cause I was too much of a wuss. To make matters worse, his arm was highly sweaty and exceptionally hairy. Awesome. I was almost in Adele's lap by the end of the flight...which could not come soon enough.
We thought we'd have a ton of everything to choose from in Ft Lauderdale. Um...no. Maybe 10 gates and only one place to find wine. Argh!! I just needed wine after the first leg of the flight. Cause Spirit was a huge letdown and we still had three more legs to go with them. And to make things even more fun, our flight to Lima was delayed. Nice.
Wine was found. And so were donuts. So the wait wasn't too bad. But the flight did keep getting more and more delayed. The hotel was alerted. All we could do was wait.
I think we both were worried about the flight to Lima as we boarded the plane. Definitely no need to worry this time. Must be the international plane, cause we had tons of room and the seats actually reclined (they definitely didn't on the first leg). Even better, we didn't have a third person in the row with us!! Things were looking up!!
It did take a bit of time to get off the ground, and now instead of getting in around 10p, we are going to arrive in the 1a timeframe. Should be fun. The hope is that the car from the hotel will still be around. Hey, we did tell them our flight number and that the flight was delayed.
Happily, the flight was long, but uneventful. We haven't quite figured out the time zone. We thought it was Eastern, but maybe it's Central?? The iPad says one thing. The cell phone says another. We think it's actually Central, so that should ultimately help with the jet lag. Then again, its almost 3a as I'm typing this. The exhaustion will be in existence no matter what.
Too tired for hotel info. More tomorrow.
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