Leaving on a jet plane!!!

I’d like to speak to the Manager!!!

The wait has been long.  It’s been fun.  It’s been exciting.  

But the day finally arrived yesterday.

Yesterday, Adam and I finished packing our suitcases, double checked for medicines, chargers, and passports, and at 10:00 we left for the bus station to begin our trip to Buenos Aries. 

To be honest, we’d both had our trepidations about the trip.

Me, because my knee is still fucked.  With a capital F.  I’ve had 2 cortisone shots, 3 Euflexa shots.  Three water drainages.  

And still she persists. 

The two days prior to leaving were some of the worst I’ve had with my knee.  

But, as they say, you suck it up, put on a good face, and just get through it.  

As I told Adam, if all we did was sit by the pool, eat good food, and just relax, then it was a win/win. 

As for him, he was nervous to travel to a city, around the globe, where we don’t speak the language, and won’t how to navigate it.  

I assured him that Americans do it every day, so we’d be fine.  

As I predicted, he’s more excited than ever, now that we are here.  

Back to yesterday:

We left at 10:00 a.m. for the bus station.  There’s a Concord Shuttle Bus that will take you from Portland to the Boston Airport in exactly 2 hours.  

We ran a few quick errands and arrived for the bus at 11:00.  The station was packed, everyone waiting for the 11:30 bus.  

At exactly 11:20, we boarded and by 11:35 we were on our way.  

It’s a very easy trip, with internet and a movie.  I watched Ocean’s 8 without the sound, while Adam looked at his phone.  

Everything about the flight yesterday was easy.  

There was no traffic getting into Boston.  There were no lines at the check-in counter.  Security, was super-fast and I didn’t even have to take my laptop out of my bag.  Within 30 minutes, we were through security, and determined to find food.  And booze.  Before the plane.  

Fun fact:  The food choices at terminal B in Boston are kind of lame.  Coupled with the knee our choices were limited.   

Adam suggested Pot Bell Sandwiches as a first course, letting me know that they had chicken pot pie soup that I might like.  I agreed, so we reversed direction and got in line.

We arrive at the counter to find that they do not INDEED have chicken pot pie soup.  

Fuck.  This is a great start to the trip.  

I order broccoli cheddar instead.  He gets a sandwich.  And off we go to eat.  

As we are finishing eating, one of my best friends in the world, comes through security.  I knew that she was going to be there at the same time, I just hadn’t expected it to be so easy to meet up.  

We finish up, give each other hugs, and then we are off for the 2^nd course of our meal.  

It’s really a choice between Legal Seafoods and Sam Adams.  Neither choice is great, so we go with cheaper.  Sam Adams it is.  

We arrive and we were still getting seated when the server arrived to ask if we were ready to order.  We didn’t have menus at this point. 

We get drinks. We have snacks.  

The clock is ticking.  We say our goodbyes and snap a quick photo

And we are off to Gate 13. 

The boarding starts about 15 minutes later, and with that Group 5 is called and we head on to the plane. 

Adam read, about a month ago, that when you are flying, it’s always nice to do something nice for the flight attendants.  So we bought two bags of candy and we gave them to the crew when we boarded the plane. 

You’d have thought we handed them all 100 dollar bills.  We were given bourbon, to carry with us on our next flight, in fact I’m drinking a Woodford Reserve they gave me right now.  They were also just sweet and so thankful.  

The only negative about the trip, was that we’d downloaded shows to watch on Adam’s Ipad, but we couldn’t get it to play.  So most of that first trip was me trying to sleep.  

Three quick hours later we were in Miami.  Early in fact.  Of course there was no gate to park in, so we had to wait.  And then when the gate became available we had to wait almost 15 more minutes, because 37 people got up to pee and we couldn’t move till they were seated. 

We are off the plane and have exactly 35 minutes to get from terminal D to terminal E.  And they are about as far apart as Miami is to Boston. 

Bum knee remember. 

I put on a good face and we book it.  Up some stairs, rode the tram, down some stairs, down a three mile corridor and after 5 hours and 23 minutes, we arrived.  They were already boarding. 

We get on the plane to discover a very cute Argentinian man sitting in our seats.  Apologies are made, he moves to the seat he has with his family and we sit down.  

The seats are great…we paid extra for them.

But the arm rests don’t go up, as we are seated facing a wall and the tray tables are built into the arms and I’m stuck in the chair like a sausage.  

We ask the flight attendant if we could move as it’s approaching the time we are supposed to leave and the flight is more than half empty.  

She doesn’t seem to like the question, but tells us to wait until the doors are closed.  

Long story short, we get to move to a row with only 2 seats, with additional leg room, and the arm rests go up.  

About that time, champagne arrives, as a thank you for the bag of treats we gave this team.  

As we get settled, people are moving about, and it’s quite an attractive group of travelers.  Men and women are all very pretty.  Not such a bad thing when you are stuck with them for 8 hours.  

We take off.  

And Adam has figured out what was wrong with the I-pad and we start watching Elvis, and what seems like 12 minutes later drinks and dinner are served.  I don’t remember the last time I was served a meal on an airplane.  Not even going to California.  

Of course, I use the term dinner lightly. 

They clear our plates, turn out the lights and I look at my watch.  

We’ve been on the plane 75 minutes.  

OH.  NO.  

Adam and I go back to our movie.  

Actually, we open our carryon and open the bottle of bourbon gummy bears that we were given.  At the botton of the container is 5 or 6 “special” gummies.  We both pop one, then go back to our movie.  

About 40 minutes later, Adam tells me he is falling asleep, and so I take the I-pad, he puts his head on my shoulder and he’s breathing deeply five seconds later.  

I look at my watch, we have 1,259 hours to go before we land.  

I go back to the movie. 

I watch 3 hours of it, check how much is left, and there is still 7 hours to go.  It is long!!!

I realize I am relaxed and tired.  I put the I-pad away, open my pillow, and will myself to sleep.  

Which doesn’t happen.  For the next 6 hours I wake up about every 30 minutes.  Toss and turn, fall asleep again, wake up, and repeat.  

It turns out to be a long, long night.  

Since I was awake, I got to see two girls throw up in the restroom with the door open.  Not a fun sound at 4:00 a.m.

I watched as the restroom was placed out of order, after the last girl.  But no sign was put on the door.  So people arrived.  And they waited and waited and waited, until finally the need to pee drove them up the aisle to the back of the plane.  

I realize at 7 hours I hadn’t gotten up once since I got on the plane.  I’m trying to figure out why I haven’t had to pee.  And then I realize, they limit your fluids.  I have had 1 glass of water, and 1 glass of champagne, and 1 glass of wine sine 7 hours ago.  I’m parched.  I’m dehydrated.  I’m fucking tired.  

I also learned that assholes, like to raise the window coverings, way before people are awake, flooding the cabin with light and waking everyone.  Fuckers.  

I learned that breakfast is worse than dinner.  

I was reminded that airline coffee is gross.  

But at 7:45 Argentine time, which is 2 hours ahead of the East Coast, we landed.  Ahead of schedule.  

15 minutes later, we were on our way to the immigration checkpoint.

Picked up our bags.  

Went through claims security.  

And were ready to start our vacation in Buenos Aires.  

As Adam was taking the suitcases off the carousel, I was waiting (bum knee), and I realized why I hadn’t slept last night.  

I take medication for depression.  One of the side effects of taking it for so long, is that a withdrawal symptom is that it interrupts my sleep.  

Fun fact:  Never, in the history of taking this medicine, have I ever realized at 2 in the morning that I’m not sleeping because I haven’t taken my meds.  I toss and turn and realize it about 30 minutes after I get up.  

Three minutes later, Chef appears and our day begins.  

PS.  It’s late.  I’m tired.  So I have no proofed this or edited it.  Forgive me for the glaring errors.