pipistrellafelix (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pipistrellafelix) wrote2007-12-20 08:49 pm
pipistrellafelix) wrote2007-12-20 08:49 pm
Entry tags:
home (and chicago adventures)
Well, I've been home for...a few days now, I guess. Today I had a gathering thing at my house; several people showed up (yay! for you all), & it was good to see them, although I was still tired & maybe not the best hostess in the world. But there were lots of cookies. Yeah. Joel & I made cookies. And Maggie helped us frost them. And they were scary.
Other than that, I've just been hanging around...Joel & I tried to see Shauna yesterday but, well, miscommunication for the win...so we're trying again tomorrow. I am crossing my metaphorical fingers.
OH! But I also signed the lease to the apartment that Cozy & I will be living in for the next six months! I really like it. More info to come.
Last night I went to the burlesque Nutcracker, the Land of the Sweets, with Ravenna--it was grand, and loads of fun. We were seated right up nearly on the stage, and we drank martinis and watched dancing nearly-naked ladies and awesome aerelists* & drank martinis and generally had a good time.
(* I really want to learn acrobatics, particularly the silks stuff. I think that every time I see someone doing them, & I should really just get up and find somewhere to do that.)
Not much else really. It is ridiculously close to Christmas. We don't have a tree. My room is a mess, because my version of "unpacking" is to open a bag and strew everything about the floor and then hope it puts itself away. Ahaha. I will go remedy this situation, after I write up my adventure in Chicago.
So we land in O'Hare, having already gone through immigration, but we all need to get our bags, go through customs, and re-check in for connecting flights (those of us with connecting flights, anyway). We waited for ages for our bags. When I finally got mine & said my goodbyes to everyone else, I went though customs (very quick), came out into the Terminal-& realized I had no clue where to go. I pulled out my paper ticket (Alaska Airlines, 5:55 to Seattle) & asked an airport employee where to go. She told me Terminal 1. I was in 5. So I hauled my bags up the escalator to the shuttle train and ride it to Terminal 1. When I got there, it was all full of United Airlines desks. Really? I think, but when I showed my ticket to another attendant, she pointed me to a line. So I stood in it. For about twenty minutes. Which was a mistake. I hadn't moved very far at all, but I was getting suspicious again, so I flagged down a third employee to ask if I really was where I needed to be. He took my ticket away, went to talk to someone, and finally came back to tell me that no, I needed to check in at Alaska (I could have told you that), which was in Terminal 3. I hauled my bags outside and found a free-floating cart, which probably saved my life since I was ready to collapse from hunger and mild panic. I wheeled myself down past Terminal 2 to 3 (and boy, in O'Hare they know how to make terminals long), and finally found Alaska's check in desk... to be told that my flight actually left at 5:35, and I had missed it.
I'm pretty much trying not to bawl in the middle of the airport (and failing), but the lady takes my ticket and ten or so minutes later, hands me it back plus a paper printout and says she's gotten me on the United flight at 7:50 to Seattle. So I wheel myself back to Terminal 1, where I had just come from, and wait in another line.
When I finally reach the desk, the woman takes my papers and listens to my explaination, then tries to find me in the database somewhere. She can't. She tries a different way, then tells me she can't check me in. She calls Alaska to ask about it. Alaska doesn't know what went wrong. Eventually she tells me that she can't get control of the ticket (whatever that means), that she can't do anything, that I should try Aer Lingus, and she hands me back my things. That's it.
I talk to the man in charge of the Terminal. He doesn't know what to do either (or more likely doesn't care), but I get him to give me Aer Lingus' and Alaska's 1800 number because I am not walking all the way back to Terminal 3 if I don't have to. I call Aer Lingus; they're closed. I call Alaska & after arguing with automatons for a while, I explain my situation to an agent. She tells me it's an international problem and transfers me, so I go through it again after staying on hold. Eventually it emerges that the only person with control over the ticket is the travel agency itself (who I never talked to, since I bought my tickets online), and no one can do anything to help me. So my options are to stay the night & fly back on Alaska in the morning, or to buy an entirely new ticket. I call my parents (for about the third time), and my mom transfers money into my account so I can stay at a hotel. And here's the smart thing: I ask them to call Joel & tell him what happened, since I'd said I'd call him when I got home.
I went back to Alaska's desk in Terminal 3, make damn well sure I'm on the first flight home in the morning, and drag myself across to the Hilton, the only hotel I can see.
And here's where perfect timing happens: Just before I go up to ask for a room, I get a text from Joel saying that he's called Eric, they're on it, and I might get to go home that night. (Eric is his older half-brother, who works at O'Hare and knows the business far better than I do, obviously). When he calls me I explain about my ticket's control problems, which basically precludes me getting on any flight except Alaska's. But in the end, Eric and his wife Julia were incredibly kind and drove to the airport to pick me up and let me crash on their couch, and took me back in the morning to catch my flight. I felt so much better sleeping in someone's house, rather than a hotel (not even including how expensive that hotel would have been), and they were angels. As well as Joel, for liasoning the whole thing from Seattle. In the midst of being all unlucky at the airport, I was very lucky in the people around me. So it wasn't all bad.
I got on the morning flight at landed in Seattle before noon. And from now on all my layovers are going to be four hours long.
Other than that, I've just been hanging around...Joel & I tried to see Shauna yesterday but, well, miscommunication for the win...so we're trying again tomorrow. I am crossing my metaphorical fingers.
OH! But I also signed the lease to the apartment that Cozy & I will be living in for the next six months! I really like it. More info to come.
Last night I went to the burlesque Nutcracker, the Land of the Sweets, with Ravenna--it was grand, and loads of fun. We were seated right up nearly on the stage, and we drank martinis and watched dancing nearly-naked ladies and awesome aerelists* & drank martinis and generally had a good time.
(* I really want to learn acrobatics, particularly the silks stuff. I think that every time I see someone doing them, & I should really just get up and find somewhere to do that.)
Not much else really. It is ridiculously close to Christmas. We don't have a tree. My room is a mess, because my version of "unpacking" is to open a bag and strew everything about the floor and then hope it puts itself away. Ahaha. I will go remedy this situation, after I write up my adventure in Chicago.
So we land in O'Hare, having already gone through immigration, but we all need to get our bags, go through customs, and re-check in for connecting flights (those of us with connecting flights, anyway). We waited for ages for our bags. When I finally got mine & said my goodbyes to everyone else, I went though customs (very quick), came out into the Terminal-& realized I had no clue where to go. I pulled out my paper ticket (Alaska Airlines, 5:55 to Seattle) & asked an airport employee where to go. She told me Terminal 1. I was in 5. So I hauled my bags up the escalator to the shuttle train and ride it to Terminal 1. When I got there, it was all full of United Airlines desks. Really? I think, but when I showed my ticket to another attendant, she pointed me to a line. So I stood in it. For about twenty minutes. Which was a mistake. I hadn't moved very far at all, but I was getting suspicious again, so I flagged down a third employee to ask if I really was where I needed to be. He took my ticket away, went to talk to someone, and finally came back to tell me that no, I needed to check in at Alaska (I could have told you that), which was in Terminal 3. I hauled my bags outside and found a free-floating cart, which probably saved my life since I was ready to collapse from hunger and mild panic. I wheeled myself down past Terminal 2 to 3 (and boy, in O'Hare they know how to make terminals long), and finally found Alaska's check in desk... to be told that my flight actually left at 5:35, and I had missed it.
I'm pretty much trying not to bawl in the middle of the airport (and failing), but the lady takes my ticket and ten or so minutes later, hands me it back plus a paper printout and says she's gotten me on the United flight at 7:50 to Seattle. So I wheel myself back to Terminal 1, where I had just come from, and wait in another line.
When I finally reach the desk, the woman takes my papers and listens to my explaination, then tries to find me in the database somewhere. She can't. She tries a different way, then tells me she can't check me in. She calls Alaska to ask about it. Alaska doesn't know what went wrong. Eventually she tells me that she can't get control of the ticket (whatever that means), that she can't do anything, that I should try Aer Lingus, and she hands me back my things. That's it.
I talk to the man in charge of the Terminal. He doesn't know what to do either (or more likely doesn't care), but I get him to give me Aer Lingus' and Alaska's 1800 number because I am not walking all the way back to Terminal 3 if I don't have to. I call Aer Lingus; they're closed. I call Alaska & after arguing with automatons for a while, I explain my situation to an agent. She tells me it's an international problem and transfers me, so I go through it again after staying on hold. Eventually it emerges that the only person with control over the ticket is the travel agency itself (who I never talked to, since I bought my tickets online), and no one can do anything to help me. So my options are to stay the night & fly back on Alaska in the morning, or to buy an entirely new ticket. I call my parents (for about the third time), and my mom transfers money into my account so I can stay at a hotel. And here's the smart thing: I ask them to call Joel & tell him what happened, since I'd said I'd call him when I got home.
I went back to Alaska's desk in Terminal 3, make damn well sure I'm on the first flight home in the morning, and drag myself across to the Hilton, the only hotel I can see.
And here's where perfect timing happens: Just before I go up to ask for a room, I get a text from Joel saying that he's called Eric, they're on it, and I might get to go home that night. (Eric is his older half-brother, who works at O'Hare and knows the business far better than I do, obviously). When he calls me I explain about my ticket's control problems, which basically precludes me getting on any flight except Alaska's. But in the end, Eric and his wife Julia were incredibly kind and drove to the airport to pick me up and let me crash on their couch, and took me back in the morning to catch my flight. I felt so much better sleeping in someone's house, rather than a hotel (not even including how expensive that hotel would have been), and they were angels. As well as Joel, for liasoning the whole thing from Seattle. In the midst of being all unlucky at the airport, I was very lucky in the people around me. So it wasn't all bad.
I got on the morning flight at landed in Seattle before noon. And from now on all my layovers are going to be four hours long.