15 June 2010

(New) Home Sweet (New) Home!

Well, after arriving to my parents last night at 11:15pm (instead of 8pm) after flight delays, and some sleep, we are now chillin' for the day. My parents are at VBS at their church so we've barely even seen them yet. But there's lots of time to catch up. Hope you enjoy the below that I wrote (mostly) last night while desperately trying to stay awake in O'Hare.

Since our final flight from Chicago to Nashville is delayed (bad weather in the midwest, I think, though not actually in Chicago), and I have nothing better to do, I thought I'd write an update about this very, very long 14th of June.  I hope you enjoy the stats about the day.

Current time in Aberdeen - 1:42am (I need to change my computer clock because that is just depressing!)
Current time in Chicago - 7:42pm
Time we woke up this morning - 4:00am
Hour slept Sunday night - a rough 5
Pieces of checked luggage - 5 at 50lbs
Pieces of carry on - 4 heavy ones
Amount paid for the extra piece of luggage - ZERO! (God is so good! I had only been praying that BMI was indeed going to let us follow United's (our long haul flight carrier) baggage restrictions, which were much more generous - 2 checked luggages per person for free - like we had been told. But you just don't always know if you can trust what you are told these days! So not only did they not charge us for a bag or two that might have been 1-2 lbs over 50lbs, but the lady didn't even charge us for the extra piece of luggage - saving us £130!!) I literally walked away with tears in my eyes at God's mercy via that lady and for answering our prayers.
Number of people carrying a large (2 piece) winter coat besides me - ZERO! (Do you know how much weight and space winter coats take up?!)
Airports visited - 4 (Aberdeen, Heathrow, O'Hare, Nashville)
Number of times food was consumed - at least 15, maybe more!
Pages read in my new Jodi Picoult book ("Handle with Care") - 100
Number of minor meltdowns - 1 - when they took my ice pack in the O'Hare security checkpoint. There might have been a few tears shed over the incident (after the fact), but it was more the injustice of it all (and lack of sleep!) than the loss of my ice pack. They didn't care that we'd been traveling at that point for 16 or so hours, the ice pack was melted and could not be permitted because it was now a liquid. Never mind. At least not much food was left needing the refrigeration.
Number of concourses/terminals toured in O'Hare - 4
Number of Starbucks passed while touring O'Hare - 7
Miles walked in O'Hare - close to two
Number of people in O'Hare also traveling and/or with delayed/cancelled flights- 23,787,093,639,845 (yes, that many!)
Number of times our last flight has been delayed - 5 or 6 (lost count, really)
Number of gate changes - 2
Number of hours delayed - 3
Hours spent in O'Hare - nearly 6
Pieces of luggage arrived safely in Nashville - 5 - HURRAY!
Hours I hope to sleep tonight - 14
Actual numbers slept - 9
Estimated temp for today - 96
Things planned for today - ZERO!

2 comments:

Miss Mommy said...

Glad you're finally there and out of the airport. I hate the Chicago airport.

The Green Family said...

Well done, Rachel. Glad you guys made it home in one piece. And I can SO relate to the taking of the ice pack. Same thing happened to me while I was trying to keep Ethan's milk cold while traveling when he was little. Although I pretty much had a MAJOR meltdown. :-/ Fatigue and I was traveling by myself. UGH! Hope you get over jet lag quickly.