Our cab picked us up at 6.00am on Thursday morning and just 27 hours later we arrived at Marcela´s parents house!
The first flight was great, it´s the first time I´
ve flown with Virgin and even though the leg room´s just the same as most other airlines the service, entertainment and food was excellent, wine in a real glass, imagine that! After watching ratatouille and numerous episodes of Flight of the
Conchords, Peep Show and the Little Britain special that I never got around to seeing the 9 hours went by in a flash.
We met up with Marcela´s uncle and aunt in Miami for a quick drink and a chat in between flights, they also has something they wanted to give to Marcela´s mum and dad and we had a little bit or room in our hand luggage so
didn´t think it would be a problem. The things they wanted us to take turned out to be a big bag full of stuff so
that made getting through the security check a little more interesting, luckily the woman doing the bag count on the way in was easily fooled by a rucksack on one shoulder and Blaine like angle.
The delay was caused at Miami where our plane was due to leave at 5.10pm local time, at about 6 we were told there was a problem with the plane and it was in a hanger being fixed but the mechanics would update us soon and they would confirm our departure time. From then on and about every half hour we were updated and delayed with slightly different versions of this story, mainly involving spare parts or testing. At about 8 they gave us a $10 voucher each to get some food so we headed off in search of something other than the pizza hut we´d had earlier sensing a long delay. We arrived back at pizza hut after a brief tour of our terminal having found no other place selling hot food, by then just about everyone else on the flight had either figured this out or had just headed straight there being the closest food outlet meaning there was now a queue of about 50 people. We
grabbed another beer from the bar next door and waited for the queue to die down hoping we would have time to spend the voucher before our flight started boarding, as it turned out, this
wasn´t going to be a problem! By this time the flight had re-scheduled for 9pm and people were starting to get annoyed, I think mainly because each time we were delayed it was half and hour or an hour and being told it´s looking good now for the next departure time. At this point we were told they´
ve got another place for the flight and we just need a pilot and crew. The plane and pilot arrived and everything was looking good, in fact when they announced that the crew had arrived some people started to clap. 15 minutes later when they were told the crew had been assigned to another flight instead and we´d have to wait for another crew people were less happy, in fact the mob that had gathered around the gate desk were now not only argueing with the American Airline staff and the pilot but also the 2 armed policemen that had had to be called!
A lot of people has the same opinion, this
wouldn´t have happened to a flight to London, but by the end of the night I started to share their opinion and at one point I think the pilot did, he walked away from the desk telling the desk staff that this is no way to treat people.
Eventually we boarded the plane and must have taken off about an hour later, I´m not
exactly sure
because we both fell asleep within minutes of sitting down.
The rest of the journey was pretty non-eventful, we were met at the airport by Marcela´s mum and dad. Them, us, two suitcases, two large rucksacks a camera bag, the bag from Marcela´s uncle and aunt and Marcela´s bag squeezed into their
clio and we drove home, luckily they only live a few miles from the airport. A quick
arepa and a coffee and it was off to bed.
