Adventures In Leaving The Country
I'm not sure how much I’ll be able to keep up with updating while on the trip but as it’s the longest trip I’ve ever taken, might as well get this party started!
Leading up to our flight, we had a very stressful week before Labor Day. This horrible hurricane named Dorian and various spaghetti models just were not a source of comfort.
We did some prep work like get gas and water. My mother cancelled her trip to visit me over Labor Day and I had a long weekend of hoping it didn’t turn and devastate Southern Florida. Well, it didn’t but it still brought havoc on the Bahamas which is heartbreaking. Over the weekend, I fully packed us both & put together my outfits for work so I knew I didn’t have to worry about packing anything else other than charging cords.
I did well working ahead on my grad school work as the only tasks I have left are actually posting my discussion assignment next week when it opens and watching two one hour webinars. The next essay isn’t due until Sept 30th!
I checked us into our flight exactly 30’hours before the flight when I saw the scariest message you want to see. A big red box that stated “your flight has been cancelled and we have rebooked you”. Cue...PANIC!!!
The flight they rebooked me on the exact same flight number, time and plane typenas my first flight. I was able to move us up to another Duo seat pair in Row 18 which makes me happy as o like being closer to the front.
Wednesday morning, my husband took Gaston to the boarding kennel while I went to work for 4.5 hours. When I got home, I got my Rhodesians to our breeders where I know they will have a ton of fun. We did some last minute chores around the house and then hit the road to Miami where we had our first surprise of the trip. Free tolls! I totally forgot that FDOT suspended all tolls due to Dorian so I gladly took advantage of that with our route to the Miami Airport. It took almost two hours to drive over but that’s thanks to people broken down on the side of the road and the rubberneckers.
We parked the car, took a photo of its location and headed to Terminal H to drop off our baggage and head through security. We were through security 3.5 hours before our flight was to take off but I rather be early than late when it comes to airports as you never know. I do have some issues with the Miami Airport...mainly this...
Once inside, we both were starving as we had both skipped having a real breakfast and lunch. One mozzarella string cheese just doesn’t cut it! We went to the generic airport sit down to have a drink and some food. For the low price of $75, I had chicken fingers and a Moscow Mule while my husband had a cheeseburger & mojito. The food did its job of making the hunger go away and for us to officially start our vacation.
We still had time to kill so we headed over to the bar at Bongo’s where I got a mojito and my husband had a tequila sunrise. Nothing like heading to France with drinks that don’t fit the desistination!
We made our way to the gate and settled until boarding. Boarding started on time and we settled into our seats which ended up being bulkhead behind business class which was nice.
I started watching GLOW season 3 on my iPad & offended the parent of middle school boys behind me. Eh...keep your eyes to your screen, there are way worse things to be watching. If it was young elementary school kids, I may have felt different.
Dinner was served after about an hour in the air. The Champagne was decent even though the food was meh. My chicken tasted way better than it looked at least but the potatoes were eh as was the carrot salad. The bread was an ice block but the brownie was good as was the block of cheddar cheese. Not too worried as it filled me up enough.
I watched another episode of Glow and attempted to sleep. I got maybe three hours that I kept waking up during, before I threw in the towel and watched more Netflix. Downloaded content makes me happy.
Attempts to block the light
About 90 minutes before landing, we were served breakfast. Also just meh but at least I got liquids to quench my thirst with water, Orange juice and hot chocolate.
Upon arrival, I discovered we had a dog in front of of the whole time! No one even knew as they were so well behaved.
Our plane landed 20 minutes early, made our way through passport control and as we arrived to the baggage claim, our luggage had just started coming for our flight. Happy that both of our suitcases arrived this time around so the split packing was for not. Our Tauck driver was waiting for us right outside customs and we were on our way to truly start vacation!!!