November 20, 2010

• Seattle: Day 1 (part 1)

  After 2-3 hours of sleep, I woke up around  5:15am. Was supposed to leave for LaGuardia at 5:45, but ended up leaving at 6am. Got to the airport, got my boarding passes, got through security rather swiftly and waited at the gate. Flight to Denver on time. I was very impressed by a flight attendant to really handled a rude passenger extremely well. She was doing her best to help people find space to stow away their stuff. There was one bin that had 2 jackets. She asked whose they were. Man claimed them. She ask, "would you mind just holding on to them for a second?" His response? A very rude sounding "NO!". I think everyone was shocked to hear that. She asked why and he went on to explain in a very annoyed tone how he and his wife only had 2 jackets as carryons and that there was no way he was going to hold his jacket on his lap. I was waiting for the flight attendant to speak her mind and go off on him, but instead of doing that she calmly explained she only asked him to hold on to it so she could put someone's purse in there. Once she put away the purse, she would put the jackets back on top. Throughout the flight, even though I was sleeping for most of it, I noticed she was a very caring, patient, motherly attendant. I was very, very impressed. I felt like she should win some award for the year or something.

  Got to Denver. Was supposed to go to gate A26, but on my way there I saw that gate A42 said "SEATTLE" and out of curiosity I went to look at it. Turns out my flight number was there too. I went to ask the lady at the gate desk what was going on because I was confused. She treated me like a child and even sarcastically showed me the sign and read slowly "SEE-AT-TLE.." I thought that was so rude. I just wanted to make sure so I didn't walk all the way across the terminal just to be sent back. Anyway, that moment was redeemed by the fact that the flight attendants were okay, but nice. They even baked (or warmed up really well) cookies for everyone. It was sooooo good. I was tempted  to ask them where they got it from. I've never been served chocolate chip cookies on a plane before, especially ones where the chocolate was melting. I actually thought I burned my tongue on my first bite. haha

  Got to Seattle. Got my suitcase at baggage claim where a young father found me and asked me if I lost a ring. He said his daughter (who must've only been 5-7 years old) noticed me playing with it earlier. I was surprised she noticed. Then I looked down and realized.. "hey! where's my ring??" I really had no clue it was gone. He said they were gonna try to look for me, but then thought it might be better to leave it with the flight attendant in case they couldn't find me at baggage claim. So I went to the airline counter and asked the guy about it. He called up to the gate and sure enough it was there, BUT if I wanted to go get it, I'd have to wait on line and go through security. He said another option was to wait until the next flight left and then the person would bring it to the ticket counter. So I ended up doing that. He was so nice and was going to walk me up there after he was done with hhis baggage claim duties, but then a co-worker came by and he asked if she could bring me up instead. I waited for a good while actually, but eventually they got my ring back to me. Thank you Frontier!

  The flights really didn't make me feel physically well though. It was terrible. haha...I don't know how business people travel so much. Maybe cause they were small planes or I just didn't get enough sleep the night before. Anyway, since Connie isn't going to be here till Saturday night and she's the one renting the car I was without a ride to the hotel. I took a taxi. Cost me almost $50. That wasn't cool. Then I got to the hotel. It's not really nice, but it's not crappy either. Just normal and clean. As I was trying to settle in, I was overcome with how lonely it was. I've never been in a hotel room alone before. Alone as in knowing no one else was going to be sleeping there for the night. It was such a sad feeling.

  The general feeling I had, despite all the good I experienced,was that the first half of my day was the bad part. Everything gets much better after though.

  To be continued...

  • 4:16 am
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