The (hellish) journey (day 1)

The pre-vacation butterflies fluttered in our stomachs, as we packed the suitcases in the car. Feeling like a million dollars (or euros in my case) I dropped the key off with our neighbors, so that they can take care of Raistlin and Shenanigans (our cats) for two weeks.

“Are you leaving today?” the neighbor asked.

“Hopefully,” we said, still giddy. When she looked at us like water was burning, we explained that we were going to fly standby, which means we don’t have guaranteed seats.

“How adventurous,” said our neighbor, with pity on her face. Suddenly it hit me… we might not be flying at all today. The hotels we booked… the car… everything could still go horribly wrong. Suddenly I felt quite scared. My instincts told me I was flying today, but my brain was trying to caution me.

Luckily, I didn’t have a lot of time to fret, we needed to pick up sweets for the trip, and then it was time to pick up Elora. I ended up treating myself to a nice summer dress that I happened to see in the shop window. *grin*

Feeling giddy again, we waited at Elora’s school. She came out looking like she just swallowed a lemon, and started to complain about how unfair her teacher was.

“Would it make your day better if we would go to the airport today?” I asked innocently. Her face instantly lit up.

“We’re going on vacation today, not tomorrow?”

“We don’t know yet,” I cautioned. “It depends if there are spaces in the plane.”

The mood was pretty good on the way to the airport, and we picked up a colleague of Daan who was going to borrow Daan’s car for the duration of the vacation. We were making plans what to do, just in case we couldn’t go on the flight, and I got that sinking feeling again.

Things didn’t improve when we made it to the airport. The ladies behind the desk told us with solemn faces there were 0 empty seats. It would all depend on people not showing up for the flight. There was still a chance, and at least the flight wasn’t overbooked, but secretly I was already picturing us going home at the end of the day.

My worry was infectious, and Elora picked up on it. When I’m stressed I’m usually very solemn, and the last thing I can handle is people asking me a thousand questions. When Elora gets stressed, she asks a thousand questions. Thank god Daan was a lot more level headed, because Elora and I were getting on each other’s nerves.

We watched the clock for 3 hours, the minutes seemed to crawl by. I had bribed Elora into distraction with a book of horse stickers, and I had to admit, she was truly being a trooper. During the pre-boarding everyone got to go through security, except us. We had to sit around the corner and wait to hear if we could go or not. We speculated when they would know. Maybe 45 minutes beforehand? When the check in would close? But we weren’t that lucky. Little over 15 minutes before the flight was about to take off, we finally got the word… WE COULD GO!!

The seats weren’t next to each other, but we were too elated to care about that. When we entered the tube leading to the plane, Elora expressed her concern about that, she was scared to sit alone, and we promised her we’d try to get seats together.

In the end we didn’t get seats together, but Elora didn’t mind. She got to sit next to two girls that she liked. A very nice lady across the isle from her wanted to change seats with us, so we at least were sort of sitting next to her. Daan would take Elora duty the first half of the journey, and I the second.

That’s when my 4 ½ hours of insanity began.

There is always one person that’s completely bonkers… and for some reason I often end up sitting next to them. This trip was no exception. Next to me were an elderly couple. I don’t know where they were from, or if they spoke proper English (I did hear him speak once, and I heard English words, but I couldn’t hear what he was on about, so maybe he only knew a few words).

The guy on the other side of them made a valiant effort to speak to them, but all they did was glower at him, so he sort of gave up and pretended he was invisible for the rest of the flight. I haven’t seen either of them crack even so much as a smile.

The man, in particular, was truly marching to the beat of his own drum. And the drum was obviously crafted by Dr Seuss. He didn’t have a lot of respect for personal body space, which turns out, is probably one of the biggest pet peeves in my life (judging by my slowly rising rage)

He was the size of a large smurf, and yet he felt the need to totally take up my tiny little bit of the airplane space. I wanted to scream: “Dude, I’m five times your height…. Get your feet out of my leg space.” But I’m one of those people that can’t just explode at strangers like that, unless they’re hurting someone else. If it’s just me suffering, I usually let it go.

I’m hyper sensitive, so nudging me consistently in the side is pretty much like Chinese water torture to me, and will eventually drive me insane. I cleverly decided to stuff my pillow in between us, to numb the movement a little… but the little man only took this as an invitation to rest his arm on my pillow and thus lean even further to my side. He either sat with his legs spread so far, that it would make the average Olymic gymnasts jealous, or he would just blatantly place his feet under the chair in front of ME.

When dinner came (in delightful Dutch themed packaging), I couldn’t help but fantasize stabbing my plastic fork in his leg.

After 4 ½ hours I had had enough. It was Daan’s turn to deal with him. Daan told me I was silly for putting up so long with it, and he didn’t care. Apparently they leaned on each other for the rest of the trip (wresting for the arm rest) and they both fell asleep. I laughed hysterically at this, when Daan told me.

Elora loved that I sat next to her. She was so freaking amazing. The whole trip she really was the brave little toaster. She barely slept, and I could see how tired she was. We would sometimes hold hands across the isle, and it was adorable. She watched movies, and was a little clumsy at times, but she was darling, and I was so proud.

I didn’t do so well. The stress of the day, mixed with the fatigue of not sleeping several nights, resulted in severe stomach cramps. I could barely eat the breakfast meal. The flight, which was supposed to last 8 ½ hours, was actually extended for almost a full hour, and that didn’t help either. I was in a lot of pain. Daan noticed this, and though I tried to put on my brave face, my skin had turned fifty shades of green, and it was difficult hiding it.

It was an utter relief to land, and I wanted to get out of the airport as soon as possible.

But my plan was foiled by the torture device known as Atlanta Airport customs. Nothing improves a mood like standing in line for an hour and a half, watching people be utterly incompetent, while you feel sick as a dog. It’s especially fun with an 8 year old who is starting to lose the plot a little. By the end she was half walking half crawling. It was a pitiful sight.

To my horror, I realized I had to vomit. Mortified, I ran to the toilet, which was about 80 miles away from where we were standing (well… it felt like 80 miles) I actually had to duck under a whole lot of ‘row-lint-thingies’ (I have no idea what that stuff is called) and each time I did, I was freaking amazed I didn’t toss my cookies right there. I think I deserve some sort of medal for this. It was insane.

In the bathroom I had a huge scare, because for a second I thought I was vomiting up nothing but blood… when I realized I had drank tomato juice earlier. (Hey, give me a break, I was up for 24 hours, and it hadn’t been an easy journey)

I felt a lot better after that, and started to gain my sense of humor back. Unfortunately airport security people are especially selected for their uptight attitudes and total lack of any humor, so I struggled to make them laugh.

The inefficiency was astounding. There were no less than 12 people running around organizing the lines… but there were only about 4 people to begin with, to actually handle the passports, etc. And only two of them were on our side. It was INSANE. There were more than 340 people from our flight alone, and we weren’t the only flight, so there were hundreds of people.

One particularly surly gentleman was barking orders at everyone. I told Daan that I would try to mellow him out a bit, so I made jokes. He didn’t smile at my jokes, but he was definitely a lot less uptight after that, and a lot friendlier. Yay me! Kindness and being silly go a long way.

Though no one was impressed when one guard told me to stop, and I sang: Hammer Time. My dance was a bit clumsy, but they looked at me like I was a dancing bear about to devour the other passengers, or something. Not the reaction I was expecting. Daan thought it was funny. *sticks out her tongue*

After a ridiculously long wait, it was finally our turn. The humorless man behind the desk suddenly wanted to know all sorts of things… including the address to our hotel. I had to freaking find it on my phone, while struggling with the stupid wifi. I wasn’t amused by this, and I wasn’t entirely sharp at that point either.

We did make it through customs, finally. That’s when we had to pick up the car from Alamo… which was at the other part of the airport… which apparently was in Katman-freaking-du. I swear we drove past our house at one point… that’s how far it was.

We did see a lot of police cars come by when we rode the bus to the car rental place, flashing their lights, in honor of the veterans. That was kind of cool to watch.

We ended up with a Chrystler of some sort. We let Elora think she was picking the car, and she was so proud. Elora was still going, and I was quite impressed.

The car was awesome, though a little filthy inside, but we were too tired to complain. We just wanted to get to the hotel. It was about 4:30 AM Dutch time and we just had enough.

The motel 8 or whatever it was called, was okay. It wasn’t luxurious, but not as shabby as I thought it would be. Getting there was a little tricky, as the sat nav had no idea what road we were on. It made me go a bit bug eyed, and I felt the need to breathe into a bag. But with forced calm, we managed to navigate ourselves out of the strange area, and to the hotel.

There I slept another whopping 4 hours, but when I woke, I was in a much better mood!

We're going to Atlanta!!!

Hurray! The counter is on 0 days, and it’s finally happening… we’re going to the US. At least… we hope so. A lot can still happen in 8 hours. We can’t be sure until the plane is actually starting to lift off.

Two years ago, on our way back from Florida, we almost didn’t make it. We were flying Standby then too. We had to wait till the very last minute and found exactly 3 seats were still available. The other people who were flying standby also hadn’t shown up, because we were (as usual) last in line. We were so happy, because it had been a long day. We even had seats next to each other… but when we just strapped into our seat belts… the stewardess came to tell us someone had shown up anyway, and he

wanted his seat. I was mortified.

Luckily for us, Daan could fly on the jump-seat, so we still got to go home. I ended up being up all night with Elora, who had a lot of night terrors back then, and all I was doing was calming her and trying to stop her from kicking the poor guy in her sleep (I bet he wasn’t too happy he made his flight either) It was a special kind of hell (where people who

send me pictures of spiders on Facebook will go when they die… just saying)

Anyway, needless to say, that little incident has made me even more tense about flying standby. At the same time… it’s usually no more than 24 hours of hell, for 2 weeks in heaven. I can live with that deal.

We’ve become more proficient at travelling as it is. The first year was hilarious, because we had no

idea what we were doing. Since then we’ve discovered some travel hacks. I think my favorite –and the one that took us longest to figure out—is travelling in a different bra.

Now, hold on… there’s a story behind that one. You see, for years I kept setting off the alarm at Orlando’s Inferno (hell has nine layers and two terminals, as Daan once said beautifully) and I would have to stand in a glass prison, for all to see, until they could find a female guard to frisk me. Apparently all female guards lived in China, because it took forever to get one. I would joke around saying it had to be the metal plate in my head, but apparently you’re not allowed to have a sense of humor as an airport security officer, because all I’ve ever gotten with being silly is the silent stare. Tough crowd.

The most exciting part of it all was that Elora couldn’t handle seeing me there when she was a toddler / pre-schooler. So she would cry for her mommy, just loud enough so that really ALL eyes would be on me while being frisked. Nothing like feeling like criminal for half an hour, while your kid brings

on the drama.

Turns out… it was the underwire in my bra. DOH! So now I wear a special (mildly uncomfortable) wireless bra. So, yay on the not getting frisked part! (watch me get frisked this year anyway)

The journey always makes me nervous. *bug eyes* This flying standby malarkey really doesn’t help, but everything is always a bit iffy. I used to love flying. It would mean long hours in a row doing nothing but reading books and watching movies that weren’t out yet.

Becoming a mother took away 90% of its charm, becoming older sucked away the remaining 10%. Now it’s just spending an insane amount of hours being cooped up with a hyper active kid, who can’t sit still for five seconds. It’s not even that Elora is not sweet or not fun during the trip (in fact most years we get compliments from strangers for her behavior) but it’s that she can’t stop fiddling, and it drives me nuts. Also, 9 ½ hours is a looooong time for a kid to entertain herself without moving around, so there usually comes a part where she gets bored. I have a book I can read to her, and we have computer games, guessing games, coloring books and airplane toys… but that’s where my mommy magic ends. It helps if we sit together, then we can take turns entertaining her… but that’s another disadvantage of flying Standby… you don’t know where you sit.

If we all sit separately, it’ll be interesting. I will pity the person next to Elora, because she’ll talk to them… she doesn’t care. My daughter just likes an audience. But anyway… I digress with my doom-thinking.

The suitcases are packed, and even the hand luggage is done. In the end I couldn’t find the charger

for the camera’s battery. This means all pictures will be made with my phone, and I’ll probably not be in a lot of them (as usual). Oh well.

All we need to do is pick up some candy for the flight. I’m considering if I’m going to put up an out of office reply. We have free wifi in the hotel (woot) so I could check it so that it doesn’t get out of hand. But at the same time, I’m taking a break. My plan is to stay away from any kind of drama for 2 weeks. I’ve even gone as far as deleting my facebook and messenger apps from my phone. I’m going on holiday from the world. This is a time I want to spend with my family, and I want to enjoy it to the fullest. It’s time for a bit of headspace.

I sent off the last things I needed to do for work. Even managed to get the reading of ‘Little Death’ (short story in Deeply Twisted) done for Horror Addicts. So I can go without feeling guilty for not making the deadline.

And now, hopefully, we’re going to go off to the US, where we’ll spend 2 weeks running around acting like big children. Whenever we go, we don’t exactly have a ‘relaxing’ holiday. We tend to hit the theme parks quite hard, until we start to run out of energy at the end of the holiday. Funny enough, that relaxes us more than beach vacations do. I can’t explain it either. All I know is that we’re going to zip-a-dee-doo-dah the hell out of this holiday!

For those of you reading my blog, thank you. *elegant bow*

I’ll see you on the flipside. If you want to leave me comments, I’ll be sure to read them. I will try to post on my blog every day, but I can’t make promises. *waves* See you all at the end of May!

A slight change in plans

*twitch*

It’s always in the last week that everything goes (pardon my French) tits up, isn’t it? One has everything cleverly planned for the holiday, and the last week is that week where lady Fortuna is having her ‘mensies’ (visitation of Aunt Flo / period) and decides to mess everything up.

Daan turned to me today and said: “We’re not leaving at 9AM, we’re going at 5 PM. After I dislodged my neck from between my shoulders and got my vein to stop throbbing, I calmly asked him why.

He told me that the actual KLM plane won’t leave until 5, otherwise we’re flying Delta. The latter would mean that we not only travel less comfortably, but that we’ll be lower on the list of getting a seat.

The problem with 5PM, is that if we can’t go on that flight, we’re basically screwed, and we’ll have to wait until the next day. If we couldn’t get on the 9 AM flight we would have had plenty of other flights to try. This does not easy my stressful mind.

And more problems reared their ugly head with this new development. As I said, I had everything nicely planned out. We would arrive in Atlanta around 12:30 PM local time, which would be 6:30 PM our time. Then we’d get the car and drive to Valdosta. It would be little under 4 hour drive, but I figured we’d be there around midnight Dutch time (taking the customs and luggage in consideration), which would be do-able.

Instead, we’re now arriving 8:15 PM local time, which will be 2:15 AM our time… YIKES. That means by the time we get out of the airport it will be closer to 4 AM. That’s going to be fun with a tired 8 year old. Also, no way is Daan still driving  4 hours then.

I did the only thing I could do; I cancelled the cheap motel in Valdosta and booked a slightly less cheap one (still the cheapest I could find) near the Atlanta airport. That means that the next day we’ll have to travel the full 8 hours to Orlando. I was all pleased with myself when I had cut that journey in half, but Lady Fortuna is having her strop on.

This sucks on so many levels. The journey went from ‘as relaxed as a standby flight could be’ to ‘utter freaking nightmare’. It’s not quite a night flight, but late enough to be a huge toll on Elora. Plus now we have two full day journeys ahead of us, instead of a day and a half.

There is a positive side, and I’m clinging to that. Elora can go to school in the morning, which means

that we can change her free day to the Monday after the trip. This will be a load off. Also, we don’t have to get up really early… actually we kind of do, because Elora’s going to school, lol… never mind on the latter.

Anyway, it is what it is. And I’m still very happy we’re going. I could do without the ‘not fun surprises’ from now on though. If there are more surprises, I would like them to come in the form of lots of money.

7 days!!! (Samara not welcome... *eek*)

*hack* okay, time for an update *wheeze*

I’ve been sick since Monday (it’s Wednesday now) so I’m channeling my inner surly old geezer.

Get off my lawn!… ehm sorry… couldn’t suppress it.

Anyway, before I fell ill Monday I was doing the single digit dance. That means we’re getting so close to the holiday we can feel it. I love that feeling. As of today we only have a week to go, which means the Noodles have started the ‘by this time next week’ game. Well, it’s not so much a game, as us fantasizing how great the holiday will be. Because we’re a little bit nuts (the happy kind, though)

So by this time next week we’ll be in the airplane and… oh never mind, I won’t bore you with the

details. Pretty sure my butt will feel like a wooden board by this time next week, and I’ll be counting down the minutes till landing. *kicks inner surly geezer* Down, surly!

Back to what I was saying… what was I saying? Oh right, a week to go. I found out I had accidentally booked a 2 door car, rather than a four door one. I don’t know what happened there, but I must have had a lapse of sanity. Of course my first reaction was to stay calm and fix it, since that way easy. I lie of course, and there may have been signs of Chanti panic.

 

In the end it all worked out fine, and we got a nice 4 door car. We even got €3,- back, so yay us. *sarcastic smile*

Getting the car is one of Daan’s favourite moments. I’m less fussy, though I really don’t want to drive in a car that kind of looks like a white banana again. That’s just embarrassing. Or one that’s the size of our shed. Okay, maybe I’m a little picky. *sticks out her tongue*

Anyway… the ‘crisis’ (and I mean that in the lightest possible way anyone could ever use the word crisis) was averted. Elora will have her own door to get into the car with, and all is right with the world. There will be no throbbing veins on my forehead.

Let’s see, what else is new? Last time we checked the flight still looked good. We fly standby, which always gives me a miniature ulcer. It’s worth it tough, the price difference is quite significant. So fingers crossed it will remain good.

Universal tickets came, so yay on that. We talked about not going, because the ticket prices are getting more and more ridiculous every year, but we had to really. The temptation of Harry Potter’s Forbidden journey, and the new ride we haven’t tried yet, were too great. Let’s not forget the Butterbeer… another great incentive to go *grin*.

 

It will be a hoot. We officially got Elora off school too, so no stress there. We’ll arrive 3 days earlier than planned, and so I’ve decided we’re going to take a trip to Universal on the Friday, before we actually stay at the Disney hotel. We have some extra time to kill, and it should be a laugh.

Counting down the days. Am glad I’m sick now, so I will feel better when we go. Of course, knowing our luck, Daan and Elora will get sick during the holiday, or right before the trip. Last time Elora had a double ear infection when we had to fly. It was a jolly trip *cringes*.

Despite my slight cynicism, I’m really excited. I hope I won’t be too tired to blog during my trip. I flaked out on the blog during the cruise, and I really regret it. I love capturing a little bit of the holiday magic and reading blogs back.

Three weeks and counting!

Three weeks and counting, and today is another good day for a blog.

I’ve been reasonably productive on the vacation front this week. The hotel we had booked for Friday May 1^st in Valdosta (the magical realm between Atlanta and Orlando) has been cancelled, and instead I booked a cheaper (read that as much shabbier) hotel for Wednesday April 29^th. We’ll now be staying at the slightly less luxurious “Western Motel”.

It’s not the ‘Bates Motel’ quite yet, though, as a self respecting horror author,  I totally would have booked a room in a place called ‘Bates Motel’. It’s also a third of the price of the other place we booked, and now we can afford a few extra days holiday, which we prefer anyway. We’ll have plenty of luxury in the Port Orleans French Quarter. The contrast will make us appreciate it more *chuckles*

We’ve also got 2 nights in some cheap hotel in Orlando. All we need now is to keep our fingers crossed we actually get to go with the plane we want to take, and not have to leave a day later. You never know with standby flying. If I’m ever rich, I’ll never fly standby again… that’s for sure.

Another thing I’ve booked are the tickets for the Universal Studios. Yes, they are ridonkulously expensive, but it’s worth it. We get ours through an English site called Tickets direct, so we actually pay less for 2 weeks of entrance, than you would pay for 2 days at the gate. It works like this, the first time you use the ticket your 2 weeks start. You can go to the two Universal theme parks as much as you want during those two weeks, so that works well for us.

I’m really looking forward to Universal this year. Elora is a bit older, and she’s looking forward to going into some of the roller coasters. FINALLY!!! That means I’ll ride more roller coasters too! Not that they’re my favourite thing, but it’s nice to be able to.

Also… it looks like she’ll be joining me in the Harry Potter ride, so I’m pretty psyched about that. WOOT. *silly dance*

I love sharing this with my daughter.

I sent out a request for an Esta, which is getting more annoying every year. They wanted the names of my parents and my former employer… what the hell??? I swear soon these people will ask me to send them a blood sample and a finger print. It’s annoying that we have to pay for it now too. $42 is a bit of a rip off if you ask me.

The car has also been booked. I think that part is one of Daan’s favourite moments in the trip. He loves picking it up. Though we don’t always get to chose. One year in Miami, we got stuck with some ridiculous vehicle that reminded me of a white banana. I was embarrassed to be seen in it. It was kind of hilarious.

Lots of things to check of my list. The dining reservations are also made. We have a few days where we will venture outside of Disney and visit such classy establishments as ‘Wendy’s’ and ‘Chili’s’ (hey, to us these are super special, we don’t have those here! Don’t judge). We’ll definitely be going back to Joe’s Crab Shack, because that was just insanely good. Mostly we’ll stay on Disney grounds for food, since we’re on the dining plan. That’s nice because that means most of our meals are paid for already, and we’ll have more pocket money to spend on stuff we don’t need.

Elora is getting her own cash this year. We’re trying to teach her the value of money. I really hope I don’t cave. You see, I truly am a strict mom, but my weakness is that I am a big kid who loves toys, so I easily spend money on crap. And in the US, where everything is so much cheaper than here, and where there’s stuff we can’t buy here, I’m easily persuaded. Elora knows this… *paranoid eyes* she knows my weakness!!! Thank god Daan will be there too, he’s stronger than I am. *makes a melodramatic gesture and whispers ‘save yourself’*

Anyway, 21 more days to go, if the gods of luck are with us. I honestly can’t wait. I’m counting the days.