Flying home
Trip Start
Dec 28, 2007
1
10
Trip End
Jan 31, 2008
Dallas, Texas
Thursday, January 31, 2008
We are currently sitting at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. Last night was another adventure. The trip to the airport was smooth, thanks to a great remise driver. Checking in was a breeze and security was not a big deal like it is in Canada or U.S. Then things got a little interesting. I purchased a bottle of water for the flight, and the lady said they would deliver it to the plane and she needed my passport and boarding card to sell it. This sounded odd, but when in Rome. When we were boarding, we had our bags searched by the American Airlines for liquids. This meant that only bottles delivered to the plane actually made it on the plane. I was glad to have my water. I guess they don't trust the security in Santiago to catch liquids, which they didn't because they did not check. Oh, and I bought a chocolate bar for the plane and I had to give them my passport and boarding card to do it. Weird.
The flight was not a lot of fun. The seats are cramped, they are trying to squeeze more people on the flight and comfort is NOT part of what you pay for. There is little leg room and the seats DON'T recline at all. Darlene and I have designed a new system. We think window and isle seats should be worth more and the crappy seat in the middle worth less. The middle seat is like torture, no air movement, wedged between 2 people and forced to sleep upright. I may pay for business class next time, it was that bad a flight. We have had almost no sleep in 30 hours, which is making life interesting. We are doing fine with each other, but if given a hard time by the security, I may snap. I will actually take to bus journeys that we have been on in SA for 14-19 hours over this 10 hour flight any day. I think it was lucky that one of us did not snap due to the heat, stress or lack of sleep.
Dallas airport was an interesting adventure. First you need the immigration papers and they stamp your passport. Then you pick up your luggage and head to customs. They flagged both Darlene and I because we had been on the ranch, though they did nothing besides instruct us to disinfect our boots. Then you drop your luggage off again at the conveyer. Then you go through airline security again. There was a little Spanish lady marching around and shouting orders. We nick named her the line Nazi. She was threatening us with fines if the passport was not open to the picture, with the boarding pass inserted there. Then she started on the liquids in bags. She marched around and handed out bags, instructing that liquids go inside. She did her spiel in English and in Spanish. She was actually quite funny, though at 6:30 in the morning on no sleep was a bit much. After the line Nazi came security. Pockets empty, liquids in sandwich bags, shoes off, laptops laid by themselves in the basket by themselves and bording pass in hand. Travelling used to be more simple. You sort of feel like a cow at the stockyards, inspected, herded and sorted. The bonus of this adventure is that we actually know that our luggage is in North America not headed for Fugi without us. It was not this complicated going south. Our bags went direct and the US didn't seem to care that we were here for 8 hours. On the good side, we were allowed to use the US citizen line, being Canadian. This line was one tenth of the length of the other line.
Anyway, we have 5 hours here in Dallas. Our flight is on time so far. We hear that Alberta is gripped by a cold snap of -30 so we would prefer to return to Argentina for more summer weather. It is hard to fathom that our adventure is almost over. I am certain we will be off on another before too long. Life is an adventure, so bring it on.
Chao!
Theresa and Darlene
