I am almost certain they move this side of the world a bit (a lot) further each year. I left for the airport at 5:30am after little sleep. This can be balanced on the six "Lester"s my grandma yelled, the storms that came through, and the fact I loathe flying.
I had been telling my mom for a couple of days I didn't think I would make the Houston flight and that I was scared they would lose my luggage, so I knew something was going to be screwy today; I just didn't realize it would add 8...yes EIGHT more hours to my endless journey.
I made it on the flight from Tulsa to Houston. But when I looked out the window to stare at the rare sunshine, I saw them taking our luggage off. Plane is dead, I assumed. Nope. No one was coming into or out of Houston due to weather for a while. I knew this would mean when planes did start flying, I would have missed my connecting flight to Honolulu, so straight to the gate agent I went. He made a few calls and I was running to a new gate while trying to let my family know what was happening. (What I later learned, I would have made that flight in Houston. It didn't leave until 4pm. However, I would have missed the connecting flight and had to spent a night at the airport, adding about 24 hours to the trip.)
As the new gate agent was trying to book me to Saipan, I said as long as the
Chicago-Narita (Japan) flight isn't a middle seat. "It's a middle seat," she says. That is the worst. She said I didn't have time to think. A middle seat all the way to Japan!? But I had to be in Saipan by Saturday morning. If I got weather delayed again, I would be late. I figured I had to suck it up and hope there was a mix up on my ticket and I got first class. Well, that didn't happen, but I did get an aisle seat next to some very nice Latin dancers heading for an Asian tour.
So, this brings me to a 6 hour layover in Japan (so I think.) And it also means instead of arriving in Saipan at 8pm with my Thai House street market waiting on me, I arrive arrive at 3am and missed street market. Noooooo! As I was debarking the plane, I heard my name paged. They put me on an earlier flight to Guam because the one they had me on was going to get canceled. Therefore, I was only in Japan a short time....but I will get to make up for it in the Guam airport. (I would leave, but I arrive at 10:30pm....little late to be asking for rides and hanging out with people.)
The bright side of my crazy day is I saw Bearded Ben in the Japan airport. He's going to Guam for a week. Even though I am headed to Saipan, I will still be back to hang out with him for a couple of days. And I was just saying the other day, my Guam trip won't be the same without Ben.
Outside of the flying itself, the worst part of my trip was the 4+ hours in the Guam airport (it was too late to call friends). THE AIR CONDITIONING WAS OFF! Imagine being in a building of windows in the summer, but you can't open any of the windows so you just melt. It didn't take me long to shed a few layers of clothes. Then, on top of that, there was no water...and I just wanted to brush my teeth.
Perry and I made it a bearable situation by riding the moving walkway around.
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