A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Vanessa Chronicles
The good news is that I'm in Japan, (finally!) the bad news is that the trip was a friggin' nightmare! I should have known how things would go when my flight to Chicago on Friday was delayed an hour because we didn't have a pilot (yes, they apparently misplaced the guy who's supposed to fly the plane. Terrific!). Consequently, instead of getting into Midway at 11:30 we arrived at 12:30; my day was off to a great start! Things went from bad to worse when I realized that my hotel was on the other side of the city, a 45 min cab ride away. What fun! I just barely made it to my Chicago orientation on time and promptly cursed myself by thinking that it couldn't get any worse. Was I ever wrong!
Orientation was fine, if a bit dull, the problem was that the hotel wasn't letting any JETs check in. Apparently the night before a bunch of flights out of O'Hare were cancelled because of the weather. Turns out all the people summarily checked into our hotel for the night and they hadn't started cleaning all the rooms for us JETs. This led to a huge long line of people stretching through the main lobby of the Holiday Inn Express waiting for a room to be cleaned so we could be assigned somewhere to sleep. Oh, joy! :) Still, I thought that it couldn't get worse. A delayed flight and 45 min wait for a room, how could anything surpass such a day!?
I shall tell you how. We had to bring our luggage down early, before breakfast, so that they could load it onto trucks and bring it to the airport. This meant that we had to stand outside the airport (my group arrived at 8) in hot, humid weather waiting for our stuff to be unloaded. The lucky people found their bags quickly and went on inside; however, with well over 100 people bringing bags in to check the people at the airport were quickly overwhelmed. I waited in line, without moving, for over an hour. By the time I finally checked by baggage, my flight was supposed to be leaving in 10mins. I booked it through security and the airport, got on the plane and... proceeded to wait for over an hour... again. Sigh.
We still made it in plenty of time for our flight to Narita/Tokyo airport out of Detroit, so I had some hope that things would stop going wrong. Indeed, the flight to Japan wasn't bad at all. We watched 4 movies and got pretty ok airplane food, the only thing that sucked was that I couldn't sleep a wink. Anyhoo, we got there, went slowly but surely through customs, and went down to baggage claim to wait for our bags. Ah yes, my luggage. The JET people told us that we would only be able to bring one bag and a carry on to the hotel, so I packed everything I needed for Tokyo in one suitcase. Naturally, only two of my suitcases arrived and neither of them were the one packed for Tokyo. That's right, goddamn stupid NWA lost my luggage. I'm one of the lucky ones, I still have most of my stuff. Some people didn't get any of their bags; nothing, nilch, less than nada. It was a freaking disaster. Our plane arrrived at 4:20, we got through customs by 5, and we were still waiting for out bags at 7. Way, way, way too much time in the airport. By the time I got to the hotel it was after 9 Sunday evening (still Sat for all you MN folks) and all I wanted to do was sleep. Alas! I could not! I had to go find contact solution and other necessities. I didn't even have my make up! Uber sigh. Lucking I had a pair of khakis,a button up shirt, and a jacket but nothing else I needed for Tokyo. To make matters even worse, I couldn't even sleep through the night. I woke up at 2 am and couldn't get back to sleep. Instead I was in one of those weird not awake but not asleep states... it's really no fun at all!
I'm hoping that such a bad beginning means that things can only get better but I'm scared to jinx myself! The good news is that everyone is very nice and understanding so I'm trying to think positive thoughts. I hope to post pics on here pretty soon... once I figure out how to go about doing that! Aside from that, I'll try to post updates on a semi-regular basis. We'll have to see how my internet situation turns out. Whatever anyone does, DO NOT THINK THAT IT CAN'T GET WORSE!!!! I don't want to tempt fate! Sayonara!
The good news is that I'm in Japan, (finally!) the bad news is that the trip was a friggin' nightmare! I should have known how things would go when my flight to Chicago on Friday was delayed an hour because we didn't have a pilot (yes, they apparently misplaced the guy who's supposed to fly the plane. Terrific!). Consequently, instead of getting into Midway at 11:30 we arrived at 12:30; my day was off to a great start! Things went from bad to worse when I realized that my hotel was on the other side of the city, a 45 min cab ride away. What fun! I just barely made it to my Chicago orientation on time and promptly cursed myself by thinking that it couldn't get any worse. Was I ever wrong!
Orientation was fine, if a bit dull, the problem was that the hotel wasn't letting any JETs check in. Apparently the night before a bunch of flights out of O'Hare were cancelled because of the weather. Turns out all the people summarily checked into our hotel for the night and they hadn't started cleaning all the rooms for us JETs. This led to a huge long line of people stretching through the main lobby of the Holiday Inn Express waiting for a room to be cleaned so we could be assigned somewhere to sleep. Oh, joy! :) Still, I thought that it couldn't get worse. A delayed flight and 45 min wait for a room, how could anything surpass such a day!?
I shall tell you how. We had to bring our luggage down early, before breakfast, so that they could load it onto trucks and bring it to the airport. This meant that we had to stand outside the airport (my group arrived at 8) in hot, humid weather waiting for our stuff to be unloaded. The lucky people found their bags quickly and went on inside; however, with well over 100 people bringing bags in to check the people at the airport were quickly overwhelmed. I waited in line, without moving, for over an hour. By the time I finally checked by baggage, my flight was supposed to be leaving in 10mins. I booked it through security and the airport, got on the plane and... proceeded to wait for over an hour... again. Sigh.
We still made it in plenty of time for our flight to Narita/Tokyo airport out of Detroit, so I had some hope that things would stop going wrong. Indeed, the flight to Japan wasn't bad at all. We watched 4 movies and got pretty ok airplane food, the only thing that sucked was that I couldn't sleep a wink. Anyhoo, we got there, went slowly but surely through customs, and went down to baggage claim to wait for our bags. Ah yes, my luggage. The JET people told us that we would only be able to bring one bag and a carry on to the hotel, so I packed everything I needed for Tokyo in one suitcase. Naturally, only two of my suitcases arrived and neither of them were the one packed for Tokyo. That's right, goddamn stupid NWA lost my luggage. I'm one of the lucky ones, I still have most of my stuff. Some people didn't get any of their bags; nothing, nilch, less than nada. It was a freaking disaster. Our plane arrrived at 4:20, we got through customs by 5, and we were still waiting for out bags at 7. Way, way, way too much time in the airport. By the time I got to the hotel it was after 9 Sunday evening (still Sat for all you MN folks) and all I wanted to do was sleep. Alas! I could not! I had to go find contact solution and other necessities. I didn't even have my make up! Uber sigh. Lucking I had a pair of khakis,a button up shirt, and a jacket but nothing else I needed for Tokyo. To make matters even worse, I couldn't even sleep through the night. I woke up at 2 am and couldn't get back to sleep. Instead I was in one of those weird not awake but not asleep states... it's really no fun at all!
I'm hoping that such a bad beginning means that things can only get better but I'm scared to jinx myself! The good news is that everyone is very nice and understanding so I'm trying to think positive thoughts. I hope to post pics on here pretty soon... once I figure out how to go about doing that! Aside from that, I'll try to post updates on a semi-regular basis. We'll have to see how my internet situation turns out. Whatever anyone does, DO NOT THINK THAT IT CAN'T GET WORSE!!!! I don't want to tempt fate! Sayonara!
posted by VW | 3:43 AM
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