Travel Horrors

Anyone who has traveled knows things are likely to go less than stellar from time to time. We have all had these moments whether its driving to work or flying across the country. Hotfessional Laurel and Sonia are having a contest for worst travel experiences and I'm sharing my story in hopes of, well lets be serious, winning a prize, but at the very least, entertaining a few readers. Observe:

The spring of 2006 I decided I had enough of Seattle with the gray winters and with my fairly recent significant other, I was going to move to New York City. We made a trip there and after several days of looking, selected an apartment. It was in Lower Manhattan in the Financial District on Broadway. The apartment sat on the twelfth floor and looked out to the north at Trinity Church, which was a beautiful grand old structure. It had been there since the 1700’s and every inch was gorgeous. It has a majestic steeple that was not damaged in the falling of the twin towers on September 11th, which had been a mere two blocks away. A true testament to the strength of the old building. We signed paperwork, left deposits and were set to move July 1.

I flew home on June 20. As it happens when traveling, there were problems. As the plane was taking off from Newark, the engine exploded in a fireball. It was the brightest flash I had ever seen while on a plane, or any other time for that matter. The entire cabin turned into mass chaos. Because the pilots were so far away from the engines, they apparently didn’t know what had happened, because the plane kept accelerating, but not quite at the normal rate. A few seconds later the plane lost power and we were thankfully slammed back on the ground and coasting down the runway. They managed to get the plane stopped and we were sitting on the runway instantly surrounded by fire trucks. To say a few people were panicking would be an understatement. The flight attendants were doing everything they could to keep people in their seats; one guy was trying to use the emergency exit, proclaiming, “This is a god damn emergency if I ever saw one!” They determined the plane could not be used for this particular flight (gee, ya think?) and brought a truck to tow us back to the gate. They got everyone off the plane, sent us all to a waiting area and in true airline form, told us nothing. We were given information piece meal and eventually 4 hours and several gate changes later they had a plane for us. By this point everyone was tired, cranky, agitated, freaked out, you name it, the emotion was represented.

It’s now midnight; I’m flying to Seattle, which is roughly 6 hours flight time. I had to be to work at 6:45am. I was beginning to get the feeling I might be late. We were on the plane, seated and ready to go. This plane manages to take off without incident. A collective sigh of relief was breathed. The crew knew what had happened in the first plane and were attempting to accommodate us. This big accommodation? Free headphones for the in flight movie. Are you kidding me? Surely someone fell down and bumped their head in the first attempted flight because this was NOT an accommodation. This was patronizing. They play us the spiffy movie, don’t serve any food as was planned in the first flight, and eventually our bedraggled group gets to Seattle. I get my luggage, find my car and head off to work. I manage to get through the day with no sleep. During this day I resigned and began tying up loose ends. I get home and by this time it’s been almost 40 hours since I have slept. I get my suitcase unpacked, get a little laundry started and figure that with a sudden unexpected burst of energy, I would pack a few boxes since I was about to be moving across the country in less than two weeks. I get a few boxes together and start loading books into one. Now I know this was probably not the best idea, being that I hadn’t slept in almost two full days by this point, but I figured I should make the most of my energy. And then it happened, like a slow motion moment from the movies, the box of books falls. I try to catch it, realize I can’t, try to get out of the way, fail and it falls and breaks my ankle. Super! I am now almost 40 hours with no sleep and on my way to the emergency room. By the time I get there I am almost delirious. They get me fixed up and several hours later I am headed home. The move still went off less than two weeks later with me packing my entire apartment, by myself, on one leg, crying much of the time from the pain and in general having a less than ideal time.

A brief overview of the move? We rented a truck, locked the keys to the padlock on the back of the truck inside the cargo area and waited 4 hours for a locksmith. We were then leaving in 5pm west coast traffic in the rain. During this two week drive across the country, my leg was in a cast, my hamster died, my fish died, my plants died, we had a car accident and some of my possessions were damaged from being thrown around in the cargo area, my entire CD collection was lost, and most of the time I felt like I had made a huge mistake and wanted to die. The lesson here? If you EVER have second thoughts, heed them. Don’t go. If a series of events as described above happens? Take it as a sign and don’t move! While I don’t regret my time in NYC, we can safely assume it could have been better, much better under different circumstances. I still miss Seattle and my friends there and gave up way too much to make that move happen.