Thursday, July 31, 2008

sporadic



I know my posting has been sporadic to say the least but here is an update on what's been going on since June 26Th.

a lot of panic and stress and travelling. 

We went to Sweden again for what was supposed to be a two week relaxing holiday. It didn't turn out as relaxing as we hoped.
It all started the day we were leaving. My mother-in-law showed up with hubby's niece in the morning to drive us to the airport. As we were getting the last couple of things ready she decided to go pick up her bike that she had left not too far from our place. She left the niece with us. Half an hour later she's still not back and I am freaking out more than earlier.  hubby calls her and she tells him she's just been hit by a van so we need to pick her up. We pack the car and start looking for her. We find her and make our way to the airport. 

When you fly from Montreal to the U.S. you go through U.S. customs in Canada at the airport before flying. I have previously been denied entry into the U.S. for the simple reason I didn't want to go to the U.S. I wanted to go back in to Canada to pick up my student visa. The rejection makes travelling to the U.S. a bit more difficult cause they have to check that what I tell them happened is what happened. This takes about 2 minutes, that is if they take the time to do it. It was relatively quick at the border in Canada so we were through security and at our gate early and spent the time trying to entertain the bus. We boarded the plane as scheduled and it left the gate and was on the tarmac when the pilot comes on the speaker telling us that New York has closed it's air to any more planes cause there are too many in the air already. He tells us they are trying to get an exception so we can go now since we're already on the tarmac. 10 minutes later he tells us we did not get the exception so now they are deciding weather or not to have us wait in the plane or make us go back up to the gate. 

20 minutes later they decide we are going back to the gate. The plane we're on is like a flying bus, it's tiny and they took all big hand luggage away from us so we had no food for the bus and they stole our magazines from the bag. Our connecting flight in Newark is at 17.25 and it's closing in on 15.30 already. Then they let us back on the plane and we leave Montreal. When we're closing in on Newark the pilot tells us we have to zig zag a bit until we get an OK for landing. We land at 17.00.

As we leave the plane there is a man waiting for us and he tells us that we have missed our connecting flight but has been re-booked on a flight to Copenhagen that is leaving in 40 minutes so run run run!!! We make our way as fast as we can to the other terminal and just as we're about to go through yet another security check another man is waiting for us. He tells us that the Copenhagen flight pushed off early so we missed that one too. He tells us we have to go up to the service desk and speak to Al. We rush upstairs and find Al, he tells us we've missed all flights that day but we've been re-booked on a flight tomorrow night, he had also booked a hotel room for us and he gave us money for dinner and breakfast. Unfortunately we could not get our bags so we were given overnight kits from SAS

We made our way to our hotel in New Jersey, which was overlooking a high way, and tried to get some sleep. The food at the hotel restaurant was very American and very disgusting. It was greasy and tasteless and nothing for bus bus to eat. Luckily I had over packed the hand luggage with food and clothes for the bus so he was quite well off. The only things we were missing were toiletries and bath toys. Bus bus had a bath with a hairbrush a couple of cups and some other things we found around the room. Then he spent most of the evening screaming and refusing to sleep.

The next morning we had some disgusting breakfast and decided against having lunch at the hotel so we left for the airport at noon. We ate good food at chili's and checked in with Al and mainly just waited around, buying and reading magazines and chasing bus around (did I mention he's walking really well now).

That evening we finally left the U.S. Al was nice enough to bump us up to economy extra and we had a good flight. The same could not be said for the family next to us who were on the receiving end of a grumpy old lady demanding they pay for her ticket cause their baby ruined her flight.

In Sweden we travelled around a lot and met lots of family and went swimming in the ocean, two lakes and a bath bucket. We missed out on meeting a couple of our friends including bus bus godmother which is a bit sad but with clashing schedules and no time we're just gonna have to meet up next time unless you guys come here and visit!

We also bought lots of pretty clothes for bus and finally found a pair of shoes that fits his wide, high and big feet (I have looked everywhere for shoes for him and I've made him try on like a million different ones or so) we picked up some clothes for ourselves too of course and walked around Skansen with bus bus future wife and her mommy! We also med cute Julia with her mommy (too bad we couldn't spend more time with you guys!)

We were truly cursed with public transport while away. We took a train from my grandma's to my mom's and we booked the X2000 (Sweden's high speed luxury trains) and ended up in the broken carriage with no a.c. the thing was rocking like a boat and everyone was sick. I was dying we had already spent 5 hours in a car before boarding the train and I spent half my youth puking from being carsick and hubby was not much better.

On the way home when we went to check in at the airport we had to deal with SAS idiots. You would think that SAS would be good at the Scandinavian airports being their base airports and stuff but no. SAS are horrible at Arlanda airport. I had called in advance (like a month early) and requested seats together, a bassinet and a baby meal on the flight. On the flight to Sweden we got seats together but that was it, on the way back we got baby food and we had to actually mess about with supervisors to get seats together. The seats we got were on a row of 4 seats and since bus doesn't get his own seat it was me and hubby and two other people on the same row. This is not great. Anyone who has ever travelled with a baby knows that it's difficult getting your kid not to touch the person next to you or his or her things. When we got the seats I knew it would be a rough ride on that row so I asked a couple of guys to swap seats with us, which they did. I just don't understand how difficult it can be to seat people travelling together, together? and how hard is it giving decent seats to people with kids? Last time we flew SAS (before the bus was thought of) it was the same thing, we didn't get seats together and had to move around, but only on the way from Sweden, never on the way to.

When we got to the U.S. they decided to make me go wait in the border and customs office to have a closer look at my passport. When I walked in there were about 4 people before me. After me there were about 10 more people coming in and they were all seen before me. When I asked the guy how long it would be cause I was about to miss my connecting flight home to Canada, he told me that they process the people in the order they come in BULLSHIT! It took 2 hours for them to look at my passport and send me on my way, unbelievable! So we didn't have time to eat at the airport like we had planned so very hungry we went about picking up our luggage and dropping it at the connecting flight drop off and going through a million different security checks and our freezer pack being taken from us even though it had made it through the first time around. We ate some Starbucks at the gate and got on the last flight home. 

Back in Montreal we got a lift from this nice guy on a little car from the gate to the customs and made it through fine. Went down to the baggage pick up and waited... and waited... and waited... and no bags. They lost our bags. We could not believe it. It was like the cherry on top. The perfect end to a horrible travelling experience. So doing all the paperwork and stuff and then leaving for home without toiletry again it was still quite nice to be home.

Oh and the bus was a star through all of this hardly crying at all and sleeping a lot on the flights and being a charming, lovely, perfect and wonderful bus in Sweden.