Dolly's Blog

Trip from Hell

Okay, so my company decided to dowgrade my travel business class to something called “premium economy”, but since I made the outrageous demand of being routed through New York so that I could spend my birthday with my friends, I was demoted even further to the dreaded coach.  Thus begins my trip from hell.  It started off okay, but got increasingly worse. 

I went to Portland this last weekend to visit Katie and Mike.  I wanted to maximize my time there, so I left Monday afternoon arriving in LA at 6:30.  I spent 5 hours in LA with a friend by the airport, which was great because it was perfect weather and we played Frisbee in the park before I had to get back on a plane at 11:30 for a red eye to New York.  I got dropped off at 10 or so and got to my gate with time to spare.  We boarded and everything seemed to be going fine, but we just kept sitting there waiting to pull away from the jetway.  After about 30 minutes of unexplained sitting, we were finally told that something was wrong with the plane and that we just have to wait until they fix it, but that it would be easier and more enjoyable (?!) to sit on the plane rather than in the terminal.  After another hour of sitting, they finally said that it would be easier to just bring out another plane and switch planes altogether.  So we all get off the plane only to wait another hour and a half for the new plane!  We finally left at about 2:30 AM which got me into New York at 11:30, the exact time of take-off of my flight to Dubai.  Needless to say, I missed that flight and had to get on the next one, which was at 11 PM.  Yay!! 12 hours to kill in JFK airport after getting maybe 2 hours of light sleep.  I thought about going into the city, but decided that I wouldn’t even know where to go and didn’t feel up to lugging my bags around.  I spent about an hour walking around the terminal looking for any square foot of carpet that I could lay on to take a nap.  The only carpet I found was in a cruelly visible, but inaccessible airport lounge.  I finally found a quiet area with an outlet to plug in my computer and tried curling up to take a nap.  I did sleep for about an hour, but the granite tiles ended up numbing the side of my body.  I tried to read, but was too tired, so the rest of the time I just chatted with people online and walked around.  The check in counter finally opened at 9, which is when I got dealt the worst of my blows…I was assigned a middle seat.  Nothing else was available, not even an upgrade!  When I boarded I thought for a second that I lucked out, because the row had four seats across so it was a large guy, then me, then and empty seat and then another guy.  I was really excited that I had an empty seat next to me!  I should have know it was too good to be true…the flight attendant asked the guy on the end to switch so that a mother and childe could sit next to each other.  So now I’m sandwiched between a large guy and a not so small mother and her 2 year old kid.  Yay, fat guys and screaming kids!  Then when I went to put me seat back, there was a kid behind me that kept kicking my chair, so finally I shoot the mother a dirty look and she was like “put you seat up, the tv screen is too close to his face”  Can you believe that!?!  So I said…” no. he’s a little kid!”

Okay, okay…I know I sound like the most yuppie spoiled brat in the world, but come on, once you go business, you never go back.  Plus it gives me something to write about

Portland

Portland was great.  I love it there minus the clouds.  We picked blueberries and rode bikes and went to a beer festival.  It was good to be with Kate.  We even got in our requisite fight/debate about nothing.  I went to the chiropractor!  I don’t know if I have mentioned it in my blog, but a couple of months ago I did a back handspring onto my head in capoeira thanks to my inability to put my hands on the ground and my spotters’ inabilities to spot.  I’ve had really limited motion in my neck since then, but never bothered to do anything about it.  So we were walking by the cutest little chiropractic office in Portland and the chiropractor was standing outside shootin the shit with his other little shop owner neighbor and it all looked so friendly and appealing that I went ahead and made an appointment.  The next day, he took some x-rays to make sure I hadn’t fractured anything and then adjusted my neck.  It all went fine and I didn’t really notice any difference right away, but I can tell you that today, even after all my neck tweaking half sleep on the airplane, it feels a lot better!  I can look up!  It’s amazing.

There is much more to be said about Portland, but a lot of it has to do with my indecision about moving there which leads to big life changing, career changing decisions, etc. so I’d rather not get into that now.

Back in Dubai

So I’m back.  I miss home.  I think I’ll go snowboarding.