The Bad Beginning

Disclaimer: This post (and probably the next few) are for journaling purposes. Which means you don't have to read them. I skip over other bloggers' travelogues, so don't feel guilty about skipping mine.

As excited as I was to be going to Hawaii, I was less than thrilled with the prospect of flying for 11 hours (3 hours from Baltimore to Dallas, 3 hours from Dallas to LA, 5 hours from LA to Honolulu). I hate long flights anyway, but trying to do it while 7 1/2 months pregnant sounded like extra fun. And it was.

There were two factors that added significantly to my discomfort: First--seating arrangements. Unfortunately, Jon was unable to get us seats next to each other. This was not a problem on the first two flights, but the last one (the LONG one) was a different story. Second--food issues. American Airlines gives you NO snacks. Not even a bag of peanuts. You can BUY a snack (like a giant cookie) for only $3! $3 for a cookie? No way. We loaded up on snacks and figured we'd eat dinner in LA before our flight left. Hah.

I also discovered the joy of edema during this adventure. I knew the rule about getting up to walk around every hour, but our first flight had us right next to the stewardess station, so there was always a cart or a grumpy stewardess in my way. When we got off the plane, I noticed that the top of my feet were hurting (weird, I know). I looked down and saw my GIANT, SWOLLEN FEET and kind of panicked. I called my mom and was pleased to find out that no, I did not have a blood clot in my leg. I'm just a fat, pregnant lady who got up religiously every hour on the next two flights. And who still has cankles two days later.

Everything went smoothly until we were leaving Dallas. For some unknown reason, they took their precious time loading the bags on the plane. We sat on the plane for 40 minutes while ONE MAN slowly loaded the luggage. Usually delays don't bother me too much, but when you only have an hour between when you're supposed to land and when your next flight leaves, a 40 minute delay is bad news.

We landed just in time for us to board our plane to Honolulu. Which meant no food for us. We hadn't eaten anything substantial for for 8 hours, so I was very grumpy. Not to mention that my pregnancy hormones seems to be getting more intense the further along I get.

And thus began the worst flight I've ever been on. Jon & I were unable to negotiate a seat swap since we both happened to sit next to couples. That alone was enough to make me almost start bawling in public. Unfortunately, it gets worse. The couple I happened to sit next to consisted of a grumpy lady who sat by the window, and an obese older man who sat in the middle. Right next to me. And proceeded to hack up phlegm the entire flight. I sat on the edge of my seat the entire flight trying to avoid touching his leg (which was blatantly in my seating area) or breathing in any of the air he was breathing out. Absolutely the worst flight of my life.

We finally land in Honolulu, and, just to top things off, they inform us that our luggage wasn't put on our flight because our plane was so late. So here we are in Hawaii--it's 3 am our time, we haven't eaten for 16 hours, we're totally gross from traveling all day, and we have no luggage. Which means no pajamas, and no toothbrushes. They told us our luggage would be delivered to our hotel at midnight (6 am our time). And they don't give you any sort of "we're sorry we screwed up on your luggage" gift unless it's gone for more than 24 hours. Losers.

Well, at least we could get some food now. Jon's team leader, Kevin, picked us up and took us to McDonald's, where I ordered a bacon ranch salad (salads always sound good after flying all day). Yum, yum. We got to our hotel, got our room (which is very nice), and sat down to eat. I pull out my salad, open up the dressing, and realize that it's not ranch. It's some Sesame Ginger dressing that makes me want to puke. So I ate Jon's fries, and the chicken and bacon off my salad. I am not the kind of person who will eat dressing-less lettuce. Sick.

We decide to sleep for a few hours until our luggage arrives. Imagine our surprise when we woke up at 2:30 am and discovered that our luggage was still not there. Nor was it there at 6:30 am when I woke up Jon and made him come eat breakfast with me. (I've never eaten so much food in one sitting). We gave the concierge our cell number and went for a walk on the beach (in our day-old clothes with unbrushed teeth. Yummy). A few hours later we get a call informing us that our luggage actually did come in at 3 am this morning. They just didn't want to call and wake us up (we were up) and then somehow forgot to pass the message on to the next concierge. At this point I was just grateful that it was all there.

And that's how we started our trip to Hawaii! I'm thrilled to announce that it can only go up from there. Sorry once again for the lack of pictures--no way I was going to visually document any part of this lovely day.

More to come...