(no subject)
Home again.
We made it back to the city of lakes. i'm so tired right now I could just fall over.
I tried to post this morning from Baltimore (what were we doing there??). Well, I actually did post, twice, but the Hilton's pay internet (yes, pay. I was mad.) kept failing and I lost the post twice. I was so frustrated.
Our direct flight from Iceland was cancelled due to a strike. So we were re-routed through Baltimore. We spent the night at the Hilton (nice) thanks to an airline voucher. Which also paid for the bulk of our dinner and breakfast there. I had oysters for the first time and was rather unimpressed. I also had my first migraine last night and that put a damper on enjoying the plush surroundings. It had been building all day and by the time we landed in our room around 11pm, I was writhing on the floor. Phil asked if I needed to go to a hospital and I didn't know what to say. I could barely see, it literally hurt to think, my brain pulsed with pain everytime I tried to breathe, I had the chills; I was naseous, dizzy, and sensitive to light and pretty much anything else. I'm sure I was a real joy to be around. Phil sat spinning in the expensive office chair behind the desk in our room laughing manically about how he felt like Donald Trump. I asked him to fish two advil out of the first aid kit we hardly used on the rough trail in Iceland and I swam through the sea of pillows and buried myself under the covers. I woke early in the morning to a clear head and great joy. I hope it's another twenty-five years before that happens again.
Anyway, this morning we went back to the uninspiring Baltimore airport and departed nearly on time for Milwalkee. Then our connecting flight to MSP was an hour late, but landed us safely at the sunny Humphrey terminal around 3 this afternoon. It felt so good to bask in the sun today. I was so tired of rain.
The whole trip home felt like an unlucky lottery. Because of all the rain and backpacking, my clothes were filthy and stinky pretty early in the trip. I had run out of anything remotely clean two days before we left. No trouble backpacking - terrible in the big city. Having to spend an extra day in airports and hotels with NOTHING clean made the whole thing a lot worse. Also, I woke on the plane to Baltimore during an annoucement about air turblence for the next fifteen minutes. I thought they were giving the "preparation for landing" annoucement. It was still three more hours until we landed. I had waited since the annoucement to go to the bathroom since I kept thinking we should be landing any minute. I was seated right next to some very noisy part of the plane and I'm sure that didn't help the cresting headache. The other woman in our row applied some excessively smelly lotion every half hour and that didn't help, either.
In Baltimore, Phil and I were both pulled aside at customs for a bag check. Then flying out of the same airport, we were "chosen by our airline" for further screening and were put in some sort of jet puffer machine that scared the daylights out of me. And, because we ended up flying Midwest airlines instead of Northwest, we didn't even get frequent flyer miles for our troubles. Icelandair won't give us vouchers, either. The Hilton was nice, but my own bed would have been far preferable.
On a bright note: Midwest does a nice job. They serve warm chocolate chip cookies during their beverage service. Almost makes up for the fact they didn't have orange juice.
I'm debating about actually posting this as it really has little value. It's mostly a gripe session and the complaints are ordinary and unexciting. But I think I'm going to anyway, simply as record. If you've made it this far, you're a trooper. I will post more details on the much more eventful Icelandic adventures soon. But now there are bags to unpack, clothes to wash, food to prepare, phone calls to make, emails to send, work to attend, and sleep to take.
Until then, I'll leave you with this:
Oh, I tried to upload a picture, but it hasn't finished in an hour, so not tonight. I'm plum tuckered out.
peace,
Meagan
We made it back to the city of lakes. i'm so tired right now I could just fall over.
I tried to post this morning from Baltimore (what were we doing there??). Well, I actually did post, twice, but the Hilton's pay internet (yes, pay. I was mad.) kept failing and I lost the post twice. I was so frustrated.
Our direct flight from Iceland was cancelled due to a strike. So we were re-routed through Baltimore. We spent the night at the Hilton (nice) thanks to an airline voucher. Which also paid for the bulk of our dinner and breakfast there. I had oysters for the first time and was rather unimpressed. I also had my first migraine last night and that put a damper on enjoying the plush surroundings. It had been building all day and by the time we landed in our room around 11pm, I was writhing on the floor. Phil asked if I needed to go to a hospital and I didn't know what to say. I could barely see, it literally hurt to think, my brain pulsed with pain everytime I tried to breathe, I had the chills; I was naseous, dizzy, and sensitive to light and pretty much anything else. I'm sure I was a real joy to be around. Phil sat spinning in the expensive office chair behind the desk in our room laughing manically about how he felt like Donald Trump. I asked him to fish two advil out of the first aid kit we hardly used on the rough trail in Iceland and I swam through the sea of pillows and buried myself under the covers. I woke early in the morning to a clear head and great joy. I hope it's another twenty-five years before that happens again.
Anyway, this morning we went back to the uninspiring Baltimore airport and departed nearly on time for Milwalkee. Then our connecting flight to MSP was an hour late, but landed us safely at the sunny Humphrey terminal around 3 this afternoon. It felt so good to bask in the sun today. I was so tired of rain.
The whole trip home felt like an unlucky lottery. Because of all the rain and backpacking, my clothes were filthy and stinky pretty early in the trip. I had run out of anything remotely clean two days before we left. No trouble backpacking - terrible in the big city. Having to spend an extra day in airports and hotels with NOTHING clean made the whole thing a lot worse. Also, I woke on the plane to Baltimore during an annoucement about air turblence for the next fifteen minutes. I thought they were giving the "preparation for landing" annoucement. It was still three more hours until we landed. I had waited since the annoucement to go to the bathroom since I kept thinking we should be landing any minute. I was seated right next to some very noisy part of the plane and I'm sure that didn't help the cresting headache. The other woman in our row applied some excessively smelly lotion every half hour and that didn't help, either.
In Baltimore, Phil and I were both pulled aside at customs for a bag check. Then flying out of the same airport, we were "chosen by our airline" for further screening and were put in some sort of jet puffer machine that scared the daylights out of me. And, because we ended up flying Midwest airlines instead of Northwest, we didn't even get frequent flyer miles for our troubles. Icelandair won't give us vouchers, either. The Hilton was nice, but my own bed would have been far preferable.
On a bright note: Midwest does a nice job. They serve warm chocolate chip cookies during their beverage service. Almost makes up for the fact they didn't have orange juice.
I'm debating about actually posting this as it really has little value. It's mostly a gripe session and the complaints are ordinary and unexciting. But I think I'm going to anyway, simply as record. If you've made it this far, you're a trooper. I will post more details on the much more eventful Icelandic adventures soon. But now there are bags to unpack, clothes to wash, food to prepare, phone calls to make, emails to send, work to attend, and sleep to take.
Until then, I'll leave you with this:
Oh, I tried to upload a picture, but it hasn't finished in an hour, so not tonight. I'm plum tuckered out.
peace,
Meagan