I had to fly there alone as my husband (Saliya) traveled there a day before for a conference. I was to leave from Indianapolis, IN airport on Friday evening and arrive in Seattle on the same night. Well, it was one hell of a trip. My route was Indy to Chicago and Chicago to Seattle. First I got to know that my flight to Chicago is going to be delayed by one hour when I arrived at Indy airport. It was a 1 hour transit in Chicago. So I was kinda worried and asked the American Airlines officer at the gate, what will happen next? She told me that I would still be able to catch the next flight as it departs from the same terminal and same concourse and the flight from Indy to Chicago will take only 45 min (not 1 hr). So I thought ok, I've got 15 minutes for the transit then. Fair enough.
However the flight got delayed another 15 min to take off. The passengers were worried and stewardess told us not to worry because the flight will take only 35 minutes. Ok again, fair enough!! Finally...the flight was on a runway of Chicago airport after 35 minutes. Ok cool it worked, I wanted to quickly get out of the plane and run to the next gate from which Seattle flight departs, but wait.....our flight stopped in the middle of nowhere. We didn't get a gate for clearance :shock:. The stewardess announced that we have to wait like 20 minutes till we get a gate to get off. The passengers got pissed off at this time and some told that they will never fly with American Airlines(AA) again. Everyone was worried about the flights they have to catch and finally stewardess checked with the airport and announced......
Flight to Korea is gone......
Flight to Seattle is gone......and the list went on.
Finally...everyone's hopes had gone:). If I am correct we had to wait about 45 minutes till we get a gate. Seriously, why can't they provide a ladder or something to get off if we like and show us some way out? :razz:. However finally we got a gate and got out tired and disappointed. It was around 10 p.m. then. Oh!! the Chicago airport was not the same as what I've seen in day time. It was so deserted and I got to know that there is no other flight till next morning. Actually it was a situation to panic for a novice girl like me...but, don't know why I didn't. I was more thinking of how to write a blog, pointing at American Airlines :). Certainly, it was their fault.
So I followed the other passengers to an AA counter. They decided to give us coupons for dinner, breakfast and for a hotel room to spend the night. Saliya insisted me(via phone) not to go to the hotel by a taxi because we can't trust taxi drivers in Chicago. Spending the night in that deserted airport was not practical either. So I was waiting in the line to get the coupons and to ask about transportation options too. My husband, parents, brother-in-law and friends were always in contact with me via phone. So I didn't feel alone, the only thing was we were apart from hundreds of miles :D. Our friends in Bloomington wanted to drive there too. It was so good of them but seriously? now they are the ones who should pay for what American Airlines did :roll:? No way!! So anyway we decided to wait and see what the officer says.
Ok, I asked her whether I can get a hotel nearby so that I can walk. She checked and yes, there was this Hilton hotel next to the airport (It was the only good happened for the day). So I walked there carrying my heavy laptop and the hand luggage. It was a long way but good thing was that I could reach the hotel from inside of the airport. Finally I arrived in my room and informed everyone that I am safe though I was half dead by that time :mrgreen:. Hmm...what a day!!
Anyway..the next day was good. Everything went right. I could catch the flight to Seattle in the morning and arrived there on time.
I enjoyed your posting. I guess I have been very lucky in all my trips around the world, and even living abroad for many months of my life, maybe two years total relying on taxis, I have probably only ever met 1 or 2 scandalous taxi drivers.. One in Bulgaria had a secret way to make the taxi meter run very fast whenever he thought I wasn't looking, I think its speed and distance sensor was hooked to his tachometer cable instead of speedometer cable because I also noticed him strangely revving the engine whenever I wasn't looking. When our trip of a few blocks was finished, and the meter showed a price enough to have gone to a distant city, I didn't let him scare me into paying his inflated fare, although his threats to call the police on me were scary and probably I did give him 20% more than I knew the price should have been. He waited outside store to try to catch me leaving and pressure me further, but finally he left. My Bulgarian friends laughed and told me it was a monkey taxi. Maybe a couple dozen taxi drivers, after knowing where I want to go, have offered to vastly overcharge me off meter prices (prices that were still ridiculously below what taxis charge in the U.S.) because of the color of my skin, but sometimes I also like to bait them by going to idle taxis in tourist ares, and asking how much to go to a popular tourist destination only a few blocks away, and see if they think they can make money taking me the long way there. if they offer to rip me off, I then switch from imitation lost tourist to loud obnoxious foreigner who actually lives there, and I stick around and loudly proclaim their wretched offer to anyone who will listen, sometimes with the intensity of a good hellfire and brimstone preacher come to witness to infidel taxi drivers, finally forcing them to leave as my loudly proclaiming the craziness of their offer ruins any chance of them ripping anyone else off while I have time to kill. Other times when I know they are offering me a rip off price to leave the city to my quarters 4 miles out of the city, "it's the traffic lah," they say, I say "yeah, and the color of my skin, you lazy person, shame" as I dismiss them and instead just walk or take a crowded bus instead....
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your Sinhalese poems eventhough I can not read them, they made me smile because of the titles, and wondering what they might be saying, the pictures, and them bringing back memories of a fifth grade teacher in Cincinnati, Mr. Sunimal Kulaskere (don't know if I spelled last name right), who taught me how to read and write a lot of Sinhalese letters and even some words, the only one I remember being buthrama. That means bottle, right? I loved the curves of the Sinhalese letters, I caressed them as I wrote them, silently mouthing their sounds, a beautiful cipher from around the world, strange and inviting in a way that English cursive never could be.
Thanks for your comment Garnet. You almost spelled "Kulasekare" correctly :) It's nice to hear that you like Sinhalese letters. However I don't know if there is a Sinhala word called "buthrama". Probably you misspelled it. Btw, its really nice to see someone from US is talking about Sinhala language.
ReplyDelete