Category Archives: Adventures Abroad

Tokyo Part Two: Turbulence, Tuberculosis and Time-travel

28 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, Un-fun Up in the Air

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: NRT-MSP

Home again, home again, jiggity jig…

Offering at one of the many shrines we visited

Offering at one of the many shrines we visited

Although the flight back was not quite as long as the flight taking us to Japan, it still felt like a small lifetime. And it wasn’t without some anxiety (naturally).

Turbulence

I used to be a lot more scared of turbulence before I started flying a lot. En route from Geneva to Cannes I was pretty sure I was going to have to actually use the emergency door at my right. Spring break 2005 on the way to Miami I was convinced I’d be in some ‘Spring Break Tragedy’ news special. At any rate, I’m much calmer now.

An amazing, larger-than-life Buddha statue

An amazing, larger-than-life Buddha statue

Usually. The flight home from Tokyo was crazy turbulent. E didn’t think it was so bad but whenever they make the flight attendants sit down and forbid you from getting up for 90 minutes as you’re rolling around somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, I don’t care what anyone says: it is so bad. All I kept thinking was that it was all my fault for scoffing during the flight safety video where the redheaded Delta spokeswoman tells you where the emergency rafts are in case of an unlikely water landing. Sigh. As you can tell, however, we did end up surviving. And I was finally allowed to use the bathroom.

Tuberculosis

As evidenced by this blog, I love to travel. I really do. That said, I loathe trying to sleep on international flights. There’s nothing like that anxiety of knowing you’re going to arrive, either at your destination or back home, and be a hot mess of a jet lagged zombie. I get myself all worked up about trying to sleep–or at least rest–and am usually unable to get more than a solid hour of sleep. Considering I catnap through every take-off, it’s astounding to me that I can’t will myself to sleep.

On our flight home, I was very tired. So tired that I thought I might actually con myself into some sleep. Alas, this was thwarted by the gentleman behind me who I swear had tuberculosis. He was hacking and wheezing like nobody’s business and was doing it at just the right interval where you would have lulled yourself into thinking he was going to finally shut up only for him to start the nasal chainsaw all over again.

Needless to say, there was no rest for the weary.

Tokyo Tower - strongly resembles my favorite tourist attraction!

Tokyo Tower – strongly resembles my favorite tourist attraction!

Time-travel

My favorite part about international travel is that I feel like I’ve found a rip in the space/time continuum. It makes me absolutely giddy to think that we left at 3pm Tokyo time and landed in Minneapolis at 11am on the SAME DAY. It seriously never gets old. Science!

Sorry for the delay on this post; I know you’ve been dying for the wrap-up of this trip. I’m actually typing this last bit from the Delta lounge in Concourse C of the MSP airport (which seems oddly appropriate)…figured I had to finish this before we take off again–in 75 minutes!

Hope you’ve all had wonderful holidays–more travel nightmares to come in 2013! (And maybe even 2012 depending on how this morning goes.)

Tokyo Part One: The longest journey

02 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, Holiday Hell, With love from the Tarmac

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-NRT

Much like the pilgrims, we spent this Thanksgiving in a new country (because I’m so pilgrim-like). E’s sister and brother-in-law moved to Tokyo in June and we could not resist the opportunity to visit a new country (and continent!) with our very own personal tour guides. In my infinite travel planning wisdom, I thought that the week after Thanksgiving would be the perfect time for a week out of the office. This logic was pretty good except for the part where it meant we needed to fly out the day before Thanksgiving…you know, the busiest travel day of the year.

Luckily, MSP had things under control and the lines were not horrible when we showed up three hours before our flight (skipping the line with the status card didn’t hurt, however). After bumping into some friends and former neighbors (and E giving a wave to some lawyer he knew who was getting a pat-down), we had ample time to sit in the Delta lounge and catch up on work before setting the Out-of-Office replies and getting on our way.

Well, trying to anyway.

Boarding went smoothly enough and we were soon strapped in and ready for our 12+ hour flight (a direct flight seemed like such a good idea when I booked it buy OY that makes for a long sit). And there we sat…and sat…and sat some more until finally the pilot came on to say that they were waiting for the print-out of how much weight we were carrying. I still cannot figure out how, on a plane that took over an hour to board, they could not have this done in time for an on-time departure. Not that I’m not used to sitting on the Tarmac waiting for Delta to be ready to go, but seriously? And just like that, our 12 hour flight became an hour longer. Sigh.

Tokyo Park Hyatt view

View from the 52nd floor of the Park Hyatt (the bar from Lost in Translation).

But we made it! And Tokyo was phenomenal–truly. The city is mesmerizing, the food is incredible, and it was great to get some family time in a new place. A few tips should you venture to Japan anytime soon:

  1. Like the Brits, the Japanese drive on the left…which means they also walk on the left side of the sidewalk. It took me about three days to get out of everyone’s way.
  2. There is no graciousness like that of the Japanese culture. Do not reach to snag a shopping bag once your transaction is complete; the associate will walk you out of the store and hand it to you.
  3. Eschew your American tendencies to get to the front of the line all the time. The Japanese line up in marked queues at the subway stops and wait until passengers have disembarked before getting on the train.

    Kamakura shrine

    Gorgeous shrine in Kamakura

  4. On that note, never worry about making a train–they run every few minutes without fail. No need to make a mad dash.
  5. Smoking is generally allowed in restaurants but not at sushi counters.
  6. Soba might be one of the best things ever invented, right behind soup dumplings.
  7. An earthquake is nothing to get overly concerned about (usually). We were at the Park Hyatt’s New York Bar on the 52nd floor when a 4.9 magnitude earthquake struck. E thought it was fun. I thought it was terrifying. The waiter asked if we wanted more rice crackers.
  8. It’s almost impossible to mentally calculate what something really costs between dollars and yen (at least for this English major). Don’t sweat it; it’s all money well spent.
Mori Tower View

The view from the 53rd floor of the Mori Tower – Mt. Fuji’s in the background

All in all, a great time. We unfortunately did not venture far outside of Tokyo but were hardly left wanting for more to see and do. Although we were dead on our feet for a few days due to severe jet lag, we agreed that it was one of the best trips we’ve ever taken.

Second post about our trip home to come!

You Can’t Go Home Again

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, Cancellation Clusters, With love from the Tarmac

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It’s hard to believe I started the blog a year ago today. Not to get all 15 year-old emo on you, but it’s been a really amazing and gratifying experience. I’ve been able to bond with new and old friends over shared flying catastrophes as well as get some serious anxiety off my chest. So thanks, all. Cheapest therapy yet.

In honor of the one-year mark, I am finally going to recount a story I’ve been hinting at for a while now–the trip home from studying abroad in 2004…brace yourself.

Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta/KLM

Route: CDG>AMS>JFK>LGA>MSP

Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away.

-Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again

On a couple of occasions whilst trapped in some travel nightmare or another, I’ve had the distinct fear that I’m never going to get home again. I know it’s irrational and completely brought on by the current stress, but I can’t help it. There’s this point where you’re sitting on a plane/in an airport/at security and you just feel completely defeated–like all the travel gods are conspiring to keep you from your destination.

Sacre Coeur

Sacre Coeur, Paris

I have never felt this more acutely than on my way home from studying abroad in 2004. It was late June in Paris, hot and sticky, and I hadn’t been home since March. Although my time in France had been nothing short of magical, I was ready to go home.

My father had come to Paris to collect me (my parents joked that if they didn’t physically retrieve me I wouldn’t ever come home) and it had been the perfect close to my travels as I got to spend a week showing off the city I had come to love. But now we were homeward bound.

Things got off to a bad start right at Charles de Gaulle. As mentioned in my post on this airport, it is perpetually under construction and, despite Paris being a huge tourist attraction, nobody really wants to help you. So my dad and I wandered around until we found the temporary relocation of the KLM desk. Although we wouldn’t know until we were stateside that our bags had been mis-routed, the KLM agent was new to the job and not instilling a whole lot of confidence, especially when we knew this was only the first of our three legs. She consistently re-asked us our names and our final destination, even when our passports and boarding passes were in her hands…we should have known she was a harbinger of disaster.

Monet's house at Giverny

Monet’s house at Giverny

Arriving late in Amsterdam (naturally), we had about ten minutes to make our connection. Which meant I had to run the entire length of the airport with my poor dad hauling our carry-ons behind me as I tried to stop the flight from departing without us (more color on this in my last post). Luckily, the door hadn’t yet closed and we made it on the flight. Things seemed to be looking up–everything would be better once we were in the US, right? If only we had known what was ahead…

Cannes, France

Cannes, France

We landed at JFK on time and had a couple of hours before our flight to Minnesota. We were herded to the international luggage carousels to collect our luggage before connecting to our domestic flight. We waited. And waited. And waited. No luggage. Finally realizing our bags were not coming, my dad and I went through Customs and straight to the Delta luggage services office. If you ever think you have a terrible job, you don’t. Livid as I was, I cooled down considerably after watching the poor woman running the office listen to some self-absorbed businessman go on for five minutes straight about how unacceptable it was that his luggage was lost and demanding $2,000 for a replacement suit. Oy. As if she was just going to give him a wad of cash and her sincere apology.

When we got our turn with Deb (I will always remember her name because I took special note to look at it after the jerk left in a huff), I was calmer but still completely riled up. Our two checked bags were missing and they held the wine and precious souvenirs I had collected over my stay. Luckily, Deb assured us that luggage is rarely “lost”, it’s usually just mis-routed. Indeed, our bags had been sent straight through to Minneapolis rather than following us.

Gordes, France

Gordes, France (Provence). No wonder I almost didn’t come home.

With that crisis averted, we were sure it’d be smooth sailing. Oh how wrong we were.

There had been some issue with our tickets so we went up to Delta ticketing at JFK. The extremely unhelpful representative told us that our flight had been canceled due to weather and that he could potentially re-book us on a flight to MN from Laguardia, but we’d have to get over there right away as the flight was in 45 minutes. Then he ripped up our boarding passes. Ripped. Them. Up. Yes, our flight had been canceled, but shouldn’t we have some proof of our previous arrangements? Anxiety reaching Defcon 3.

But what was there to do? We hailed a taxi and got over to Laguardia. After re-checking in, we headed to our gate. By now we knew that there was some serious weather affecting all East Coast airports. In fact, every airport had been completely shut down for a few hours (including JFK, LGA, Newark, Reagan, Dulles and ATL) and flights were getting canceled left and right. Awesome news.

Swiss Alps, Geneva

Swiss Alps, Geneva

Our gate agent assured us our flight was going but we weren’t so confident when the flight next to us (to Detroit) boarded and then un-boarded with the flight ending up canceled. We did board though, and I let out a huge sigh of relief when we actually pushed back. Finally, I was going to get home!

Not so fast. During our boarding and beginning taxi, the airports were shut down again. As our pilot explained, however, if we went back to the terminal, we’d be in for the night so he wanted to wait it out on the Tarmac as that was our only shot of actually getting home. Thank goodness for a MN-based flight crew and some foresight on the part of the pilot to top off the fuel.

Three hours later we were still sitting on the Tarmac with no end in sight. My cell phone was dead as were our laptops and the mini-DVD player my dad had with him. We had pretty much nothing to do except try to remain calm. Not my forte.

FINALLY, after nearly four hours on the Tarmac, we got an update from the pilot. Apparently, airports had reopened and due to his air traffic control connections (is there a pilot frat?), we were going to get out. Better than that, because so many planes had to go back to the terminal after running low on fuel, we were going to be the second plane out of the entire East Coast. I’m pretty sure I cried when we took off. There was a whole lot of clapping.

Although I had convinced myself I was never going to get home, we did finally make it (and for all those shenanigans, we were only about seven hours late). My big bag did not (of course–god forbid something work out), but it was delivered to my parents’ house the next day and all the wine survived. Whew.

And this, my friends, is why I never make a connection. Direct flights only.

Eiffel Tower

La Tour Eiffel, bien sur

P.S. – you will all be delighted to know that after missing both our prior anniversaries due to work travel, I will be firmly planted on the ground here in MN come Thursday’s three-year mark. To the rest of our natural lives (and beyond), Intrepid E!

Airports I’ve Known and Loathed, Part II – AMS

12 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, Fun with Security

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Tulips at the Amsterdam flower market

Oh the tulips at the Amsterdam flower market

Last year, E and I visited the city of Amsterdam primarily because I had never stepped outside the airport after 10+ years of flying through it. And it was great. Amsterdam is a fabulous city and a real European treat. I only wish I could say the same for its airport.

There have been many memorable visits to Schiphol…I don’t think I’ve ever felt traveling anxiety the way I’ve felt it at AMS. It’s hard to distill, but here are the top three recollections.

  1. Amsterdam architecture

    Amsterdam architecture – the hooks are used to move large pieces of furniture.

    The time I ran the entire length of the airport. I really need to write a post about my trip home from studying abroad (yes, the same trip where #3 on this list happened), but for the sake of this discussion, I’ll just recap the very quick portion spent at Schiphol. Traveling home with my dad from Paris, our first connection was at Amsterdam. Naturally, we were late getting in and, knowing that we still had to connect at JFK (this trip is the singular reason I never connect if I can help it. Triggers the PTSD.), I was worried we’d be stuck overnight in Amsterdam or New York even if we didn’t get on the plane to NYC.

    AMS is a “one terminal” airport which can be helpful because you don’t have to take a tram between terminals but unhelpful if you get in at one end and have to get to the other. Which was exactly the case here. Because we had flown on a commuter-type flight from Paris, we weren’t near the international departures. As my father had recently had angioplasty, I took it upon myself to run ahead. Literally. Like a crazy person. I got to the podium and begged the gate agent to let us on, breathlessly telling her my father was coming and throwing around “heart condition” to gain some sympathy points. I looked (and felt) like a maniac, but we did make the flight.

  2. The time we spent an hour in the basement of Schiphol. En route home from Hungary a couple of years ago, we connected through Amsterdam. I’ll have to do some sleuthing as to whether there’s tension between the two countries, but it sure seemed like we were put through the ringer. First, we had to deplane on the Tarmac. Second, we were herded onto a bus and driven to the terminal. Finally, we were left in a teeny room, barely big enough to hold the 200 or so people from the flight. It became apparent that we’d be going through security again before being allowed into the main terminal (even though we had clearly gone through in Budapest). Sigh. There were two security staff working one conveyor so it took about an hour to get through. Thankfully, our flight had arrived slightly early so we had time to waste on these shenanigans.
  3. Anne Frank Museum, Amsterdam

    The Anne Frank Museum. Incredibly powerful.

    The time I thought we were going to have to call the State Department. Ok, this is a bit of a cop out since I already wrote an entire post on the time our passports were mis-scanned and we were pulled aside while our national identity was clarified but I think we can all agree this is about as bad as it gets. There’s nothing like being detained (ok, ok, that’s overstating it) like thinking you will be detained in a foreign country to make you want to never leave your house again. If I thought I looked like a crazy person in story one, I was even worse in this predicament as on top of the near-meltdown, I was rocking a horrible (and attractive) case of sun poisoning. Don’t be jealous.

I’m really grateful we spent time in the actual city of Amsterdam. Aside from fearing I would be run over by a bicyclist, it was an amazing time. And it makes me loathe AMS just a little bit less.

Amstel River, Amsterdam

A view from the Amstel River.

Airports I’ve Known and Loathed, Part I – CDG

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, With love from the Tarmac

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I mentioned in my last post that I’d write a future installment with commentary on specific airports that have caused me headaches (and blisters!). What was mostly meant as an off-handed comment actually brought some very specific requests for these posts to take place. So, much like the deconstructed baggie post, away we go!

L’Arc de Triomphe, safely taken from the center of traffic by my father.

I bet you thought I’d start with ATL but honestly, some of the most poignantly awful experiences I’ve had in an airport reside at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. I know that this has the propensity to sound like a White Whine submission, but it’s the truth. Here are the top three memories I have from disasters at CDG:

  1. The time that kid threw up. E spent a year at LSE getting a Master’s so after I graduated undergrad, we thought a European jaunt would be the perfect celebration. Since he was in London, we decided to meet in Paris. Très romantique, n’est-ce pas? After landing at CDG, I was surprised/not surprised to find that we couldn’t pull up to a gate. I was surprised because we were on a HUGE plane filled with hundreds of passengers (I had connected through Detroit) and not surprised because CDG is always a hot mess of construction. On the Tarmac, we were loaded into a tram/bus thing to get to the main terminal. I wasn’t wild about this, but what are you going to do? Unfortunately, one of my fellow travelers, a little girl who was probably about six years-old, was even less excited. No sooner had she uttered “Je me sens mal” to her mother and she was throwing up all over the back of the tram. It was not awesome. Everyone just kind of looked at each other with grimaces and edged away from the mess. Exactly the kick-off to vacation I was hoping for!

  2. Notre Dame by night.

    The time the baggage carousels were closed. As repeatedly mentioned, I usually carry on luggage. However, when I was traveling to Paris in 2004 to study abroad, I needed a few more pairs of shoes than I usually bring on vacation so I had checked luggage. Upon arrival we were, of course, routed to Customs. I was 20 years-old, completely alone, and not really at a point of mastering my French skills so you can guess how terrifying this was. After clearing Customs, I went to baggage and looked around frantically for a monitor that would tell me which carousel held my bag. As CDG is perpetually under construction, all the carousels were closed. I kid you not. Every single bag was coming out of ONE hole. The chaos was palpable. I still do not understand what travel gods were looking out for me, but the second I deduced what was going on and edged my way to the hole of baggage, my bag came through. I know, it’s a mystery to me, too. Let’s all pause to say a prayer of merci.

  3. The time that new KLM agent lost my luggage. At the end of my study abroad session, my dad came over to visit and we flew home together. When we got to CDG, we queued for check-in at KLM and had an agent who was clearly new on the job. Although a supervisor was theoretically helping her, she still managed to get everything wrong. We were connecting home through Amsterdam and NYC and she booked our bags all the way to Minneapolis. Imagine our surprise at JFK when our bags never showed up and we had to explain to Customs that we weren’t doing anything untoward. Considering the amount of precious cargo I was bringing back stateside, I thought I was going to lose my mind. Not to mention that when we got to Minneapolis, one of the bags was missing altogether (naturally the one with all the expensive wine), and wouldn’t be located and delivered until the following day. Don’t worry, the wine survived.

I should probably note at this point that Paris is my all time favorite city. I could/would/probably should live there.

Still my favorite tourist attraction.

I should also probably note that I flew to CDG about a year ago and everything was running much more smoothly than when I encountered the above situations. Regardless, a million disasters at CDG could never diminish my love of Paris.

If they run out of wine, we may have to reassess.

Just Another Icelander

18 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by in Adventures Abroad

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: AMS-MSP

They say that the worst thing about vacations are their ends and I’ve certainly found this to be true…especially if you find yourself in trouble at Schipol.

After a lovely two weeks in Prague, Bratislava and Budapest, we were en route home to Minneapolis via Amsterdam. We had started our journey that morning in Budapest and let me tell you–if you ever doubted Communism took hold of Eastern Europe, just visit the Hungarian airport sometime. It was unmitigated chaos. E and I are pretty well traveled and certainly know our way around a ticket counter but we could not for the life of us figure out this airport. There were people milling about aimlessly and poorly formed lines cropping up every which way. We were flying KLM but had some Hungarian partner aircraft for the first leg of the journey…if only we could find it. Luckily, I finally found someone to help us and he did the check in for us at a kiosk (this detail is important later).

Anyhoo–we arrive in Amsterdam mostly on time but nothing can ever be easy in Amsterdam, can it? We walk down the stairs onto the Tarmac and are transported to the airport in a bus. Upon arriving, it is clear we will be going through security again (is Hungary’s TSA not up to snuff?) except this time, our plane of 200 passengers will do it single file through ONE security lane.

Once through the saddest excuse for security ever in the Schipol basement, we were off to our gate. Amsterdam “opens” the gate about an hour ahead of time on American-bound flights so that everyone can be interrogated one last time. Then you go through security again before sitting in a holding pen until you’re allowed to get on the actual plane.

We get through the interrogation just fine but as we go to scan our passports, there’s a problem. Every time I try to scan mine, a red light starts flashing. Finally, the highly annoyed gate agent tells me to go talk to someone at the desk. When E tries his passport, the same thing happens. I try to control my panic.

We wait patiently (well, E does anyway) in line at the desk until someone deigns to look our way. When she scans my passport, she asks if I have my visa with me. I ask her why and she says because my passport scan shows I’m an Icelandic national and have an American work visa. E’s passport says he’s French. Naturally, I’m now convinced we are going straight to Schipol detention and try to wrack my brain of who we call first for legal advice.

The women at the desk keep hacking away at their computers without really telling us what’s going on for what feels like hours. Managers are called over, calls are made and all the while, everyone else on our plane is going through the system just fine. Every time I try to add some piece of knowledge or push my MN Driver’s License on them, I’m rebuffed with a condescending statement that it will be fine. Just what the girl with the Jewish surname wants to hear by people speaking terse Dutch.

Finally, we are free. It would seem that in our helpful Hungarian’s quest to help us, he ignored several key questions when he checked us in at Liszt Ferenc, thus changing our nationalities. Köszönöm, Andris.