Adventures in Newark
I didn't quite realize how long it had been since I last updated. Hmm. Anyway, my trip home for spring break was rather, well hellish, and I had to share it with someone.
So let me tell you about the ordeal to get home for spring break. There were really high winds in parts of the northeast last Friday, so flights coming out of Newark and New York were delayed. Before we left, our flight into Newark was delayed a half hour. By the time we got to the airport, it had turned into two hours, meaning we would miss our connector. The woman at the ticket counter was nice, but couldn't really do much for us. Dani's mom got us reservations on a flight the next morning, in case we didn't make our flight to Jacksonville, which we didn't. The woman at the ticket counter had tagged our bags to go all the way to Jacksonville, so they would be on the first flight out in the morning and hopefully be waiting for us at the Baggage Claim office. After missing the connector in Newark, we spent half an hour in line at the Customer Service desk. The terminal was warm, and we were fairly stressed and had just run through the airport. Any of you who have talked to Dani recently may see where this is going. The agent was unable to do anything for us, other than say that we might be able to get a 'distress rate' at one of the hotels near the airport. Since it was a weather delay, they weren't handing out any freebies. So we were walking away from the line when Dani passed out and hit the floor, me half managing to catch her head before it smacked into the tile. The funny thing as no one nearby seemed really concerned, except for one guy, to whom I had to admit 'this sort of thing is not entirely unusual'. So they brought her some water and called a police officer who called the paramedics who took over half an hour to get there. Then the manager came up and said that considering the circumstances they would put us up in a hotel for the night. She disappeared with our tickets, and never saw her again, but we did get our room and meal vouchers at least. The police officer was a really cool guy. He started to tell us to get a bottle of wine from room service at the hotel before remembering that we can't. But as he said, 'Well, I can't tell you to, but I won't be there, let me put it that way'. The paramedics were also nice when they finally arrived, and after they and the officer had left, a customer service guy (who Dani referred to as Shmuckman) got us our tickets. He then didn't understand why we wanted a shuttle to get us to the Air Train, saying it 'was only a short walk'. Which it wasn't, but didn't matter anyway since Dani could barely stand. Well the cart never showed up, and he was most unhelpful. We decided a wheelchair would be better, and that never showed up, so I had to flag one down. We finally got to the train station, but it took forever to get on, because, well people from New Jersey are assholes. (Sorry if I offended anyone, but they were quite rude, and the vast majority were people who worked at the airport.) After getting to the place where the hotel shuttles picked us up, it was about 45 minutes before they told us that we had to call the shuttle, which was odd because the other shuttles seemed to come on a regular schedule. So we finally got on the bus to Howard Johnson, and the driver comes back and says something about Ramada Inn in a language that could not have been English. We had to go there instead because Howard Johnson was full. So we get up to our room at 2 am, fall into bed, and stay up for another 20 minutes because the couple next door apparently were not very tired. So we woke up at 6, had a very mediocre breakfast at the hotel, and actually got to Newark and to our gate in a surprisingly smooth fashion. The best part is that when we got to Jacksonville, out bags were sitting right inside the front door of the Baggage office. All in all, it only took us 20 hours to make the trip. And last night we had to drive down to Orlando since she is on RA duty three nights in a row. Yay for traveling.
Other than that, things are going well, at least on the school front. Classes are interesting for the most part, and I have next year mostly planned out. After that, I'm starting to look at UCF since Dani is staying at Rollins an extra year, and there's a professor there who I am interested in working with, so we'll see what happens. I've only started looking around, so I have to see what other options are out there. Hopefully I will to get an internship or something over the summer so I don't have to rely on temp agencies that don't do shit for you. Oops, sorry, some bitterness came out there. I should probably be off to do some reading since I haven't done any of the tons of work I have to do over break. Oh wait, the operative work there is break. Ah fuck it.
So let me tell you about the ordeal to get home for spring break. There were really high winds in parts of the northeast last Friday, so flights coming out of Newark and New York were delayed. Before we left, our flight into Newark was delayed a half hour. By the time we got to the airport, it had turned into two hours, meaning we would miss our connector. The woman at the ticket counter was nice, but couldn't really do much for us. Dani's mom got us reservations on a flight the next morning, in case we didn't make our flight to Jacksonville, which we didn't. The woman at the ticket counter had tagged our bags to go all the way to Jacksonville, so they would be on the first flight out in the morning and hopefully be waiting for us at the Baggage Claim office. After missing the connector in Newark, we spent half an hour in line at the Customer Service desk. The terminal was warm, and we were fairly stressed and had just run through the airport. Any of you who have talked to Dani recently may see where this is going. The agent was unable to do anything for us, other than say that we might be able to get a 'distress rate' at one of the hotels near the airport. Since it was a weather delay, they weren't handing out any freebies. So we were walking away from the line when Dani passed out and hit the floor, me half managing to catch her head before it smacked into the tile. The funny thing as no one nearby seemed really concerned, except for one guy, to whom I had to admit 'this sort of thing is not entirely unusual'. So they brought her some water and called a police officer who called the paramedics who took over half an hour to get there. Then the manager came up and said that considering the circumstances they would put us up in a hotel for the night. She disappeared with our tickets, and never saw her again, but we did get our room and meal vouchers at least. The police officer was a really cool guy. He started to tell us to get a bottle of wine from room service at the hotel before remembering that we can't. But as he said, 'Well, I can't tell you to, but I won't be there, let me put it that way'. The paramedics were also nice when they finally arrived, and after they and the officer had left, a customer service guy (who Dani referred to as Shmuckman) got us our tickets. He then didn't understand why we wanted a shuttle to get us to the Air Train, saying it 'was only a short walk'. Which it wasn't, but didn't matter anyway since Dani could barely stand. Well the cart never showed up, and he was most unhelpful. We decided a wheelchair would be better, and that never showed up, so I had to flag one down. We finally got to the train station, but it took forever to get on, because, well people from New Jersey are assholes. (Sorry if I offended anyone, but they were quite rude, and the vast majority were people who worked at the airport.) After getting to the place where the hotel shuttles picked us up, it was about 45 minutes before they told us that we had to call the shuttle, which was odd because the other shuttles seemed to come on a regular schedule. So we finally got on the bus to Howard Johnson, and the driver comes back and says something about Ramada Inn in a language that could not have been English. We had to go there instead because Howard Johnson was full. So we get up to our room at 2 am, fall into bed, and stay up for another 20 minutes because the couple next door apparently were not very tired. So we woke up at 6, had a very mediocre breakfast at the hotel, and actually got to Newark and to our gate in a surprisingly smooth fashion. The best part is that when we got to Jacksonville, out bags were sitting right inside the front door of the Baggage office. All in all, it only took us 20 hours to make the trip. And last night we had to drive down to Orlando since she is on RA duty three nights in a row. Yay for traveling.
Other than that, things are going well, at least on the school front. Classes are interesting for the most part, and I have next year mostly planned out. After that, I'm starting to look at UCF since Dani is staying at Rollins an extra year, and there's a professor there who I am interested in working with, so we'll see what happens. I've only started looking around, so I have to see what other options are out there. Hopefully I will to get an internship or something over the summer so I don't have to rely on temp agencies that don't do shit for you. Oops, sorry, some bitterness came out there. I should probably be off to do some reading since I haven't done any of the tons of work I have to do over break. Oh wait, the operative work there is break. Ah fuck it.