I came aboard the plane where there were only about 20 people waiting! I found my seat and the bloke who was sat in the window seat nearest to me smiled and said hello.
Apparently the plane was waiting for a number of people on a delayed flight from San Juan, and so that's why it hadn't taken off on time and I was able to catch it!!!
Mr. Friendly Philadelphia man (window seat) was trying to get a signal on his mobile so he could offer it to me to use to phone my parents (who by now would probably be freaking out not knowing where I was or if I got on the later plane etc.). But he had no signal so I was just going to chance it and hope that Dad was at the airport when we landed.
After about half an hour (you'd have thought they could have served drinks to us or something!!) the San Juan bunch arrived -- and I can see why they waited so long... the San Juan bunch nearly doubled the number of passengers!!
One guy was in shorts and a t-shirt and I had to laugh because he's in for a big surprise when he hits Columbus!
Once everyone was all settled, we were expecting an announcement from the captain saying we were ready for taxiing to the runway for takeoff. But instead we got a message that we couldn't back up onto the area to taxi because there were so many planes ready for takeoff, there's a huge queue. He also mentioned a long queue for the deicing machine (which we would need to go through), and explained that he was hoping the queue would have gone down a bit while we were waiting at the gate for the San Juan folks.
At this point, it's about 10pmish and we've just reversed to taxi and have moved somewhat, but are now sat still and the captain announces that there's been a little fender-bender up ahead, some luggage truck has been blown by a strong wind into a passenger plane, and they're having to clean up the mess and tow the two machines off and assess the damage. So they were going to allow people to use their mobile phones while we sat there.
I looked over at Mr. Kind Philadelphia and he shrugged helplessly in apology (still no signal for him), so I looked to my right hand side to a chinese gentleman and asked him if I could pay him $10 to make 1 call on his phone.
He asked if it were in the United States (at this point I was too tired to be upset that he thought I was English) and I said yes, and he said it would be no problem because on his calling plan all calls within the States are free!! So he didn't want my money.
He had a rather complicated phone, so I needed a weensy bit of help to figure out how to dial. (As an aside here -- it seems that almost all Americans I saw with mobiles (and I saw a LOT) they all have the flip up kinds, some with antennae, some without, but almost all are Verizon phones... they must be the UK equivalent of Nokia I guess).
I was able to get through to Mom (it's about 10:30 now) and tell her that we weren't going to be there for another couple of hours probably (because we were now in the queue for the deicing machine and it's a long queue) and she said Dad had just left so she was going to try and reach him quickly so he could turn around and come back.
I hung up and thanked the man profusely and we got into a really excellent conversation about living in a different society and having to go through transitions of translating stuff in your head etc. He is Chinese but moved to Canada to go to school as a teenager, then decided to become a Canadian citizen and now lives and works in the U.S. but still travels to Quebec frequently to visit friends. We talked about what he's done as a career, he's been a university professor and has a PhD in Mathematics, but now works as a Consultant on computer networking and security. Which is kind of what Andy wants to do, but not on a consultant basis.
This conversation lasted the whole way back to Columbus and I thanked him again when we landed. He didn't check any luggage so he was off when we disembarked (smart man!).
The rest of us made our way down to the baggage claim areas. Dad was waiting right at the top of the escalator and I was sooo glad to see him!! By now it was about 12:45 and in 15 minutes I would have been up for 24 hours straight!!
We waited for our luggage, and I only saw one of my pieces of luggage. :( Rats. They lost a bag. So I had to stand in a really long queue of all the San Juan people to fill in a form to say where to deliver my bag when it arrives the next day. My only smile at this point (and it was an evil one) was because mr. shorts and t-shirt man had been banking on the fact that his winter coat was in his luggage and he could put it on later.... or not!! So he probably froze his tookus off!
We got back to Mom & Dad's house just before 2am, so I phoned Andy really quickly and went to bed!!
My other bag arrived the next afternoon, thankfully all in one piece!
Thus ended the journey from He**.
Posted by kristen at January 5, 2005 10:41 AM