Revacation part 8 THE END

2010/04/02

For the 2nd day this week I woke up in the morning on a bus pulling into a bus station. We grabbed all stuff and hauled it out of there and found a taxi to get back to Ale's house. When we got there we just dumped it off and crawled in her bed to finish sleeping.

When we woke up we didn't do much. Today was a resting day. We basically sat on her bed all day (like how she is every time I call her on skype :P) and played with our computers. We copied each others pics from the #revacation. I gave her a bunch of media that I had on my hard drive that I put on there specifically to give her. She downloaded Windows 7 for me and installed it on my laptop along with a bunch of other stuff which was awesome. It was a nice day to just be together in a more normal setting than with the excitement of vacation all around us. Later I actually wish we had spent more time doing stuff like this. I love how tech savvy Ale is. <3

As the evening approached we both could fell our hearts growing heavy. It was time to pack up her dad's car so they could ride me to the airport to go home. The was the most glorious week I had ever experienced in my life so far and although it seemed to stretch out for longer than it actually was it had to end sometime and this was now. I knew this moment would eventually come and I dreaded it. I was getting sad because I had to leave.

It was a crappy long ride to the airport and when we got their her parents stayed with the car and Ale walked me in as far as she was allowed to go. I checked my bag and we walked to where I had to walk thru the security gate and sat down. What was I supposed to say? I don't think I needed to say much we were both just crying. We hugged and kissed and stuff until I got up to go to my plane. I think I cried thru about 3 security gates before I was able to stop. It sucked. I don't know why I had to go thru so much security either. It was pretty stupid but I eventually made it to my gate and boarded. It was time to leave this country and go home. I knew I'd be back someday. This was after all the trip of a lifetime.

EPILOGUE

2010/04/03

When I woke up and got off the plane in Washington DC I had a little less than 2 hours to get to the next plane back to Pittsburgh. I knew we had to go thru customs but little did I know I still had a bit of adventure yet to go. I scheduled everything this way because I felt I'd have enough time to get back to make it to Isaac's first ever baseball practice. Something I did not want to miss. When I got off the plane and shuffled down with everyone else to customs I started thinking that not only might I not make it but I might be stuck here for a long time. The line wrapped between those velvet rope things throughout the entire room. Sure they had a lot of booths at the end to check the people out but like only 3 of them were staffed at this time. I got on chat on my phone with Ale and told her what was going on. She didn't want me to worry so she kept reassuring me that I would make it. She didn't see this line though. It moved agonizingly slow. You could hear everyone bitching to each other and to loved ones on their phones that they were stuck in this line and were going to miss their flights. It took about an hour and half for me to make it to my turn but it seemed like forever. I was thinking at this point I wouldn't make it. The guy looked at my stuff and let me go thru. I started running.

In the next room was all our bags. I saw mine immediately and grabbed it. Ok, I have a few minutes. Maybe I would make it after all I thought. The next room was another security station. Take off all your clothes, etc. Good god man. Where do you think I got a gun from between here and where I got off the plane? For real. Again the lines moved so slow. Well there goes my hope of making it. I finally got thru this and started running again.

I came out in the airport proper and although I knew what gate I needed to make it to I had no idea where that was. I asked some guy and he said go back the way I came. That confused me. I went back down the stairs to the security station. This wasn't right and I was wasting valuable time. I went back up the stairs and looked the other way. There was a sign for gate A. I ran. Oh boy did I run. I had less than 10 mins. There was no way I thought. You always see in movies people running thru the airport like that but never have I experienced in in real life until now. That was me. My gate was of course at the furthest point away from where I currently was. At least now I had running buddies coming along with me. Other people were killing themselves as well to get to their respective gates. We all got a small break to sit down and rest when we got to the shuttle that went between gates. My legs were killing me. When the shuttle stopped we all took off again but I could barely run anymore. My luggage was too heavy and my calves were on fire. at least now I was at the right gate and I had an early number like 3 or something. As long as they went in numerical order I was almost there. I couldn't be that lucky. It, of course, was in reverse numerical order. My gate was way at the other end. I kept running the best I could. I kept telling myself that I could rest when I got to the plane.

I finally made it and I burst thru the gate throwing my boarding pass at the lady. Oh man, the plane wasn't here. This just opened up into a whole other corridor I had to run down and without fail my gate was the very very last. I could see the words Pittsburgh on it as I tried to catch my breath. I was sweating and dying here but I MADE IT!! I don't know how but I did with 1 minute to spare. Luckily I was in seat 1A so I could finally sit down. Just a quick 45 min jaunt home now.

There was still some more pain hauling my stuff to where I parked (if you remember my first #revacation blog it was pretty far back) but the worst was over. Oh no someone in DC broke my luggage. I only had one wheel now. :| That's going to make it harder.

I packed up my car and blasted straight to the municipal field. What a good daddy I am. Flying home from another country overnight on a 12 hour flight to go straight to my sons baseball practice is a story I enjoy telling. I texted Ale I had made it and sat down to see my son learn the wonders of team sports. Could there be anything better? A leg massage would be nice. :P

THE END

Revacation Part 1

2010/03/26

I went on a Revacation recently. I left from Pittsburgh airport on 2010/03/26 to go to Buenos Aires. It was probably going to be the trip of my lifetime. I never went anywhere that far away or that exotic. This is what happened in sort of timeline of events kind of way.

"What is a Revacation anyway?", you might ask. This is a vacation that you've already planned out and actually left to go on but before you make it events beyond your control end it early and it's like it never happened. When you replan it and successfully make it to that 'rescheduled vacation' then that is what I am referring to as a revacation. It makes it a little more special to call it that.

As you may have guessed I did leave to try this vacation once already. In February, in the heart of the worst snow storm we have ever had in Pittsburgh, I got on a plane to connect in Atlanta to get out of this. Unfortunately in Atlanta it only snows once every 10 years or so and 3 inches of snow was enough to shut the whole airport down. I was stuck there and after 4 hours on the phone the only choice was to wait until Wednesday to continue to Buenos Aires or go home to Pittsburgh at 1:30pm tomorrow. I didn't want to cancel after going this far but the thought of spending 5 days in the airport was even less appealing. It killed me to do but I had to call it off in hopes of trying again later. Alejandra didn't really like this decision either but what other choice did we have? To complete my 24 hours stuck in the Atlanta airport then 1:30pm flight back to Pittsburgh was delayed several times, we boarded and re-boarded and didn't actually leave until 6:00pm. Not a pleasant experience. I decided due to this I would not fly to Atlanta airport again unless absolutely necessary nor would I book another flight with Delta for the way they handled the situation.

So I came back went back to work on Monday and worked to reschedule. The other possible week we were thinking about originally came to be the revacation 03/26 thru 04/02. I did what I needed to do until that date came. This time we were using United and I was going to DC and I was positively hoping that there would be no issues this time.

I left work around 2:30pm on this Friday. I wanted to get thru Pittsburgh before I got caught in Friday rush hour traffic. I decided that after a bad experience with FastTrack airport parking

[mini rant] I loved the service, I loved the shuttle, the parking area seemed fine, everything seemed great until my vacation was cut short. I paid to park my car for 8 days but since I came back I only used 2. It took over 5 weeks and I don't even know how many phone calls to get my balance refunded. They don't like giving refunds apparently. I won't dissuade anyone from trying this service but after that experience, I don't think I will use them again. [/mini rant]

Like I said because of this bad experience I would just park at the airport instead. It took forever to find a space. I was in 16D which is pretty dang far from anywhere. When I got my stuff out of the car I seriously wasn't even sure which way the airport was. I couldn't see it. I started walking though and I found it. I was pretty far out though and even after I made it to the terminal with those moving walkways, my arms were still sore from hauling all my luggage with me. I checked my bag and even though the security lines were long I made it through with no trouble. I had some time to kill so I got a burger and a beer at TGIFridays. I met a crazy character there. This guy had to be on some kind of drugs. The lady sitting on the other side of him and I kept giving each other look when he'd say something that was crazy. He was cool though. It's better to meet people like that then regular boring fools. About another hour later I was on my plane to DC.

DC airport is like one long huge corridor. I had time but I still hurried to my gate when I got there. Since it is an international airport I saw many strange foreign people. That was a pretty neat experience for me. I made it to my gate, got on chat for a few minutes with Ale before we boarded. This plane was huge. I've never been on anything like this before. The 1st class passengers didn't even have seats, they had their own booths. Impressive. Every seat had a screen on the back of the seat too. You could either watch movies or the feature I liked the best was a GPS for the plane. It showed our route as a dotted line on the map and gave constant updates as far how how far away we were, how long it would take, how fast we were going and how high we were. I liked just watching that the best. I had dinner on the plane which I've never done before either and I was awake for a while with excitement before it all caught up with me and I fell asleep. I was off for an overnight trip to another continent!

TO BE CONTINUED