Flight fiasco

So my "first time flying alone" flights last weekend turned into a nightmare. There was a domino effect of each plane being late, which in turn caused me to miss my last flight out of MN. On top of that, somewhere in between Logan and Detroit my cell phone decided to reprogram itself into thinking it's a verizon phone, thus rendering it completely useless. I was unable to call anyone, including Jonny T, who was supposed to be picking me up in Iowa an hour from my being grounded in MN, at 11:30pm central. The airline decided to put me up in a sleazy hotel in Bloomington, gave me $13 worth of food vouchers, and found me a flight for 10:30 the next morning. After waiting in line for 2 hours to locate my checked luggage so that I could have more than the airline "I screwed you over, so here's some travel shampoo and an oversized tshirt, good luck" bag, I found a payphone, frantically called Alltel and got my phone working again, then caught the shuttle they had arranged to get to the hotel.

On my shuttle bus ride back to the hotel, I was the only person in the van, so the van driver decided to strike up conversation with me. At this point I was cranky, trying to call everyone I could with my newly recussitated phone, and didn't like the way the looked at me when he helped me put my bag in the van. I decided to be polite and answer the guy's typical questions with a simple "Boston," "My flight was misconnected," "Iowa," and then mistakenly mentioned the food voucher the airline gave me. I told him because I thought he might know how one uses said voucher, and later thought it would've been a better idea to just ask the front desk guy. The van driver (roughly in his early 30's) invited himself to share my voucher with me and give me some company. Yeah. I was thisclose to just leaning over and punching him hardcore in the balls, but I refrained and gracefully said, "thank you but no," and didn't speak to him again. When we finally got to the hotel, I wearily checked in and locked myself in my room. I splurged the food voucher on a salad, diet pop, water, and a piece of cheesecake to counteract the healthy stuff (and to utuilize as a little comfort food) and got my stuff ready for the next morning. I had been up since 6:20 eastern, which means 5:20 central time, and finally had my head uncomfortably meet the pillow in MN at 2:00am.

The next morning I got up and completely ready for the day. I even flew in the dress I was wearing to the wedding. Fortunately this puddle-hopper flight went off without a hitch and I even had the whole seat-row to myself. After giving a huge sigh of relief to finally see Jonny T, we were back in a car for a 3 hour drive to the wedding. The wedding festivities went well, although I don't remember much of anything past the reception (and even some parts of that are fuzzy), but it was good to see the 6th north crew again.
On my way home, I connected through MN again and had a (planned) 3 hour layover, so I got a chance to see Megan and go out for dinner. Seeing my friends like that again made this whole fiasco completely worth it, I miss them a lot. Of course, my flight from MN to Logan ended up landing an hour late, so TJ (who met me at the airport in Logan to help me get home) and I weren't able to catch public transportation which ends at midnight (I finally got my bags by about 11:59), and were stuck shelling out $35 for a cab.

For this trip, I used a free voucher that I got from volunteering to be bumped from a Northwest Airlines flight last January. Flying Northwest with 2 connecting flights in the middle was worth every penny I spent on it...


worthless.

playing musical-airports

I've officially survived through week 3 of school and came out somewhat alive on the other end.
I can't wait for tonight to roll around; I'm heading back to the central time zone for a wedding and to hang out with the 6th north crew. First thing's first, I'm hoping I can make it there all in one piece and that my checked-in luggage follows suit. I cashed in my free flight voucher for this weekend and in order to stay within the $300 range it allowed me, I have to bounce through 3 states in order to get to my final destination. Between Detroit, Minneapolis, and finally Iowa, I pray to God everything runs smoothly. I've never had problems with luggage getting lost before, but I've never played musical-airports like this before either. I also have to get from plane A to plane B in under a half hour at each place. Cue track meet start-gun here. I've scanned the restricted items list and am a little confused as to why I can't bring a pinky finger-sized tube of Carmex, but I'm allowed to sport a 4 inch long screwdriver onto the plane. Really, in their natural, unaltered form, which one's gonna be more of a problem? Like I'm gonna moisten their lips to death or something. I do understand that they're worried I might have stuffed something more dangerous into the pin sized hole of the tube, but this just seems a bit excessive.
Anyway, I leave in about an hour and still have some things to take care of before I go. Please pray to the airline gods for me on this one...

2 for 1 special on blog updates this weekend

We managed to accomplish as little as humanly possible today.
We rescued our friend and former housemate (he still lives at the hole we escaped from 2 weeks ago) yesterday and had him test out our new airbed by crashing in our unfurnished dining room last night. We weren't exactly partying, we were just too lazy to drive him home after each having a drink. Today was no exception. I got up and made omelets for everyone, then we basically sat and watched football all day. We did manage to get outside this evening, I picked up some pictures, then we picked up a pizza (again, we were too lazy to cook, do you sense a pattern here?). When we got back, we discovered our neighbors across the street having a party. One of the tenants wandered out of their yard, pointed at us, and invited us over for a bit. We gave the polite "yeah, we'll try to stop by" wave and smile and went in to eat our pizza. TJ and I decided to wander over to check it out and meet the neighbors, especially if they're planning on throwing more wicked parties like they appeared to be doing at the moment. Will (former housemate) stayed back at our place to finish watching another college football game, so TJ and I meandered across the road for a peek. These guys soundproofed their garage and made it into a party pad. They had darts and beer pong set up with the stereo speakers turned up (although you couldn't tell how loud they actually were until you got to the doorway). The two guys who each occupied a floor of the 2-family home introduced themselves, handed us a cup for free (redeeming the $6-each-beers we had to pay for in the bars last weekend) and pointed us to the nearest keg. Everyone apparently knew everyone else at the party, so we were the only unknowns there. When we got introduced to one of the tenant's sister, we made sure to state loudly that we just moved in across the street, in order to avert the confused "are they crashing our party?" looks from the other party-goers. We stood there in the middle of the back yard, feeling as awkward as someone who wakes up next to an unknown after a one night stand, struggling to remember the names of the two guys who actually lived there and coming up with nothing. We waited long enough to hear other people, drunk enough to speak without realizing they were shouting, say the names of the two guys, then gracefully thanked them for their welcoming beer kegger invite and meandered home. Our entire time there added up to only about 10 minutes, but we figured that was enough for one night. Now we sit, all 3 of us (we're still too lazy to drive Will home tonight, and remedied that by having him sleep over again) watching taped episodes of Avatar and drifting off to sleep, listening to the party rage on across the street without us.
Tomorrow we get to experience the exciting adventure of finding a laundromat and doing our overdue, heaping pile of laundry.

Funny how the "I'm too tired to get out and do anything fun and exciting" sets in so quickly after a rigorous first week at a new school...

By popular request, I have decided to sit down and finally update.

I have been so busy this past week, I haven't even had downtime to obsessively check away messages of random people I don't really know on my AIM list.

School has started and is in full swing, and by swing, I mean complete and utter disorganization and minor chaos. For a school that has been described to me by several people as "the Harvard of dental hygiene schools," it leaves something to be desired on the level of having things in order. I do have to give them credit for the fact that the dental hygiene degree credentials are always changing, and this particular school had done some recent "housecleaning" in terms of letting go of their dean and some other staff. I do really love it, though. Everything is state-of-the-art, they don't have any paper files, it's all computerized including digital x-rays, and each operatory has its own personal computer for quick and easy access of each patient's chart.
The faculty are extremely nice and are handling the shuffle quite gracefully. The books cost about a half a month's rent (and I do mean Boston-sized rent,) but are well worth it in the long run of things (or so they tell us). During orientation last week, they warned us of the rigor and difficulty of this program and emphasized the importance of keeping up with the material. So far, I have found things to be quite breezy. I also went to a college that was basically a prep school for going on to med/dental/grad schools, and have a 4-year head start with the basics of dental assisting, so I'm primed for the beginning of this to be review. I am learning new things, but unlike those who don't have a dental background, I don't have to learn the basics on top of it.

Other than school, things are going well. Like I mentioned in my last post, we're completely moved into our apartment, and our landlady is doing her duties to fix things around here. We get a brand new dishwasher next week and she even asked us what color we'd prefer! The girl that lived here before us used screws to put pictures up on the walls and then yanked them all straight out when she moved, so we have gouge holes all over the apartment. Our landlady is hiring someone to fix that and paint a couple of rooms in here too, all we have to do is tell the guy what colors we'd like them to paint. I finally get to live in a place that doesn't look like a hospital on the inside, woo hoo for non-white wall colors!!!
My sister and I have grown closer as well. I feel like we finally have a sisterly relationship where we can turn to each for advice on things, respecting and appreciating each other's different experiences in various aspects of life. She and her boyfriend might come out to visit in January, and I'm already excited and starting to pick out places to show them while they're here (if they are able to come).
Mom is still mom. She's put her mission of trying to get rid of my dog on hold, but is still being the same old inconsiderate person in regards to imposing her boyfriend on my life and wedding scenarios. I'm sure there's someone out there who will show her fun things in life and make her happy without pressuring her to cut all ties with any strings she might have (i.e. a job she likes, her daughters and extended family, her house). The guy expects her to be there for him literally 24/7 and makes her feel like crap if she takes 2 hours out of the entire week to spend some time for herself, let alone hanging out with her family. I think she's been picking up on that issue lately too, I just hope she has enough self esteem to do something about it soon.

TJ has gotten into the groove of his grad school program, has been making some fun friends, and has been wined and dined like crazy in the process. We've been to about 4 school sponsored grill-out/free food and drink-type events since he started orientation during the last week in August. Last Thursday we got to go to Fenway Park for the Red Sox/White Sox game. We were able to get what are usually sold-out tickets for the game through his school. It was the coolest thing ever! Like usual, Boston lost with flair, but the experience of being inside the park was worth the home game humiliation.
Next weekend I get to use my free flight voucher and head to Iowa for a wedding. The guy we thought would be the last one outta any of our college group to get married turns out to be the first. This group is fun to celebrate with, so I'm extremely excited for the reunion. TJ wasn't able to come with for this one, so I'll have to do some celebrating for him, too.

Well that's about all I can think of for now, I'll try to remember to get to this if I can find a free minute!