In the SKY

So I'm finally in the plane on the way to Costa Rica. I'm writing this obviously without an internet connection and will later upload it to the blog. It's been a long day.

The first delay occurred in Indy. We had a short delay due to weather in Atlanta. Not much to worry about.

Then, once I got to Atlanta and was waiting at the gate there, I heard that earlier in the day, apparently, there was a delay due to the tire on a plane popping when it landed. Man, that's scary! The people sitting next to me now were on that plane and they said the landing sounded louder than it should have been, and then they heard a "flop flop flop" as it rolled down the runway.

So in Atlanta, we were waiting at the gate for maybe 20-30 minutes longer than we're supposed to and finally started boarding. After about 20-30 people got on, they just suddenly canceled boarding and everyone had to get off (not sexually). We didn't know what the hell was going on for a long time but apparently there was a maintenance problem on the plane and something was broken. Great! Well obviously I would much rather be delayed than fly in a broken plane.

So now I have a bunch of extra time and I'm not sure when we're going to board. After a lot more time waiting, I end up going to the bathroom. While I'm in there, I hear that the gate has been changed. So I quickly finish up, get out and go to the gate. A lot more waiting follows.

Then there was this mob of people up at the counter where I guess they had to reissue our tickets for the new gate or something. I don't know, it was really confusing. But I happened to be right at the counter with maybe one person in front of me when they told us they were going to have to do that. Immediately though, a mob of people forms behind me, and social rules start to disintegrate as people pushed up to the counter and cut in line and a few people got to go before me. Eh, it's not a big deal, but in my head I was thinking, "I HATE you. You are an awful person."

I don't really know what happened next, because soon after, we all just started boarding and I feel like the ticket swap thinking didn't really do anything. I don't really know. It felt sort of like the Obama inauguration though for awhile there. Tons of people standing around, getting annoyed, and not knowing what the hell was going on.

FINALLY we got on the plane and now I'm in a chair . . . in the SKY.

It was pretty cool though: in the Indy airport, there was this lady who looked confused about if we were boarding or not (we weren't; it was just people checking to see if they would make their connections.) She came up to me and asked me in broken English what was happening and if she needed to worry about it. I told her that we weren't boarding yet.

I noticed, though, that she had a Spanish accent. So I figured I'd try it out. I first asked if she spoke Spanish (just in case my accentdar was bad and she was actually from East Tuk-Tuk, Mokoland.) She said yes and so I tried to explain the situation in Spanish. I probably sucked it up big time, but I spoke with her for a few minutes, or maybe just a few sentences.

It just got me excited for all the Spanish speaking I'm going to be doing. And if I have enough Spanish in my brain to be able to understand the basics of what someone's saying and to speak with her about random flight stuff (at least TRY to), I just know I'm gonna be SO good by the end.