Category: the Rant Board
I'm sure some of you have some great stories of travel gone wrong. Mine in comparison must not be that bad.
I live in Sydney, and three days ago i traveled from Sydney to Melbourne and came back today, but when i went to pick up my ticket, i found they had me booked going from melbourne to sydney and going back to melbourne the next day! If i were leaving from melbourne, why would i pick up my ticket from Sydney?
Also, on the way down, i was in a carage with four children all under 6 and a mother who couldn't control them. and this was an 11 hour trip. I got no sleep that night.
Going back was thankfully easier....apart from one conductor insisting at three in the morning that my stop was coming up, when i knew perfectly well that i wasn't getting off the train until it reached Sydney at 7 in the morning. I had to find my ticket to prove it to him.
Oh, yeah, the train was also 2 hours late.
so, who else has some great, happy stories?
Well, I was flying from Toronto to Vancouver after a three-weeks ummer camp. I was living on three hours of sleep (you know how the last night of camp goes), and had to be at the airport at 8:30 AM. My flight was scheduled to leave at 11:00, and I was waiting at the deparchures desk for someone to assist me and my friend down to the gate.
The flight was delayed fifteen minutes, then another fifteen minutes, then a half hour. Keep in mind, no one told my friend or I; I had to keep going up to the counter to ask when we were going to be escorted down to the gate.
We finally get down to the gate . . . and wait . . . and wait . . . and wait . . .
Finally, about fifteen minutes before the plane's scheduled to take off, I'm REALLY pissed off. I've been in the airport for almost five ours, have no way to reach my Dad to let him know that we're running late, and on one's telling us anything. I march up to the counter and say, "We're on our way to Vancouver, and the plane's supposed to leave in fiteen minutes. Unless you want the luxurious job of explaining to our parents why we're not there, get us on the plane . . . now!"
The lady's response: "Oh, no, honey, that flight's been cancelled."
I have never been so mad in my life! We had to run from one end of the airport to the other to catch the next plane to Vancouver... no small feat in Toronto.
The plus side? We got to sit in first class! :)
hmmm....i have quite a few travel stories. but i guess the worst one is when we were going to almeria in spain and the girl behind us colapsed. we had to help her all the way from the plain to the hotel and it was not easy at all what with all the cases and stuff.
also at one time we were flying to cuba and we were stopped by the airport security. they thort we had mangos in our bags with drugs in them. it turns out they were only chocolate oranges. haha. it goes to show how secure cuba is. lol!
hmmm, well, the last time i went to perth, i was stopped by securety and made to give a small concert so they could see that my auto harp wasn't a bomb.
going to perth seems to be very unlucky for me. the first time i went, i broke my wrist because i wasn't using my cane and i fell over a concreet slab that was left in the middle of a foot path. I also got the biggest splinter you could ever imagine from my friends dining room table, wich, had no noticable splinters says she, but i still got one.
My two friends took turns holding my hand while i screamed while a doctor who had already treated my wrist took it out.
Oh, yeah, that friend who has the table is a zoner, so just you ask resonant about it.
In the middle of Winter back several years ago I had opportunity to make a trip by car to The North Country with my Dad. It was kinda neat in that he and I had not traveled together alone as Mom or others would also have been along. But this time it was just us two. We had to get some papers filed at The Court House regarding some land sales and meet with ones who were purchasing the properties. The trip up was fine. Regular say 5 hour trip, stopping to spend the night at a friend of my Dads. In the night it started to snow..and snow..and snow… Now this was way out in the Country with gravel roads and snow ploughs on short supply. As we drove into town the next morning cars were all off in the ditches. We managed to remain driving for the most in the middle of the roads as none else hardly was using them. By Noon we had papers all in order and on file and left right away to come back into The City. Roads were so very icy. Did I say icy! There were times we had to drive like 5 miles an hour…and even then at times almost completely spinning in a circle. This time and again. We got on to I-75 at one point and all was in a fog and pelting snow. It was not until midnight, some twelve hours later that we arrived back home. Thankfully safe.
*LAUGH* I, thankfully, have not had any disastrous experiences. *Knocks on wood.* But I did find your stories amusing, Loui. Hee hee.
well, i'm glad to provide you with entertainment. the splinter was really painful though
Awww, poor you.
Oh no, Galileo, i find it quite amuzing that you had to play a concert to proove you weren't a terrorist. I wish I was sighted because I'd like to see what looks I'd get with my huge rucksack which bulges out everytime I use a train, only use them every 6 weeks really. Think it'll be hard playing my djembe though but I'm up for the challenge if railway station guards need me to. My takeaway once had a disasterous travel story, it's somewhere down the boards that one or at least my views on it whilst I was still furious.
hmmmm, i'm sure there is a good name for a band or album colectively here...
Sit back, relax, and grab a cup of coffee. Tonight I tell you about the disaster that happened to us in April of 2000 as we took our annual trip to Florida, this time of coarse around Easter. On this trip, we had my Grandpa take us to the airport in his car. We got delayed between Krista, AKA 1800trivia (can you harass her about this one) taking her sweet time and the car stalling. By the time we got there, it was fifteen minutes to takeoff and we checked in. By the time we got down to the southwest gate, Oh no! Our seats've been given up, as well as the seat's of two other people. Flight 1305 would be taking off without us. So, we were given the choice of canceling the trip or trying to go down there to the best of our ability. I was quite irate, so you know what I chose. The family really didn't wanna cross me for that one. So, the four of us plus that couple decide to book a few flights. We'd all go on flight 97 to Baltimore which is the only number I remember from here on out, then a flight to New Orleans, a layover, then finally Tampa. We'd be where we were supposed to be around midnight. Keep in mind, the ladies in the group needed medications for takeoff and landing for some reason, but we went ahead with it. Flight 97 shows up, and we were warned that an old lady had to use oxygen on that flight. You get that uneasy feeling. Then we were warned that that plain had problems, so it'd be taken to the hanger. Oh great, not another delay! We finally get off the ground for the 28 minute flight to Baltimore. We listen for the connections and hear "Tampa." Tampa? What the hell? So we get off the flight, ask if we can get on the flight to Tampa. Permission was granted, but we'd have to schedule luggage delivery. We land at Tampa, were scheduling our pickup, when the Scottish woman flying with us spots one of her bags. Sure enough, there's our luggage! it turns out that those bags came over from the original plain. How I don't know. So a happy ending to a real disaster there. So as the Scottish woman said, Cheerio!