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tygatiMy flight out of San Diego on Wednesday boarded at 10am, so my aunt and uncle got me to the airport around 8:15. At curbside baggage I'm told I need to go inside, there's some sort of problem. The lady at the check-in counter informs me that there's the possibility of up to an hour's delay, but my layover in San Francisco is two hours so there's no danger of me missing my connecting flight. Fine, I hand over my suitcase and go wade through security.
For the next hour and a half they can't decide if there's going to be a delay or not, and if so, how long. Finally, at boarding time, they decide that it's going to be a two hour delay and we'll be boarding at noon. Apparently, there is... fog in San Francisco.
Cue me wanting to strangle someone. Pilots are trained to fly IFR (instruments only) for a reason people!
From ten to noon, they keep making maybe and could be announcements about well, we're checking with Air Traffic Control again in fifteen minutes, and maybe if it's favorable we'll go. Finally I catch a snippit of conversation I wasn't supposed to hear and learn that our captain (a spunky older female) has twisted a few balls to get clearance to go. We board.
What's interesting at this point is that somewhere in all of the people coming and going and talking and waiting, I overheard someone talking about an Indian woman who was apparently wearing the same habit as Mother Theresa. (White with blue stripes) Interesting, but that was all. Or so I thought.
Guess who my seat mate wound up being? ^^;
I really wish I'd managed to get a picture of her. She was young, hadn't gotten promoted to full Sister all that long ago, and grew up in Calcutta. She has one other sister who is a Sister, at least one more non-religious sister, and four brothers. They grow all their own food on their property, and it takes ... I think she said five years to become a Sister? This is her first time out of India, and she'd been on planes for two days! @_@ Going from Calcutta to Dubai to New York to San Diego to San Francisco and her final destination was Spokane, Washington. Which was fascinating to me because that's just over the state border from where I grew up. She'll be missionarying there for 1 to 5 years (She grew up speaking Hindi, so our conversation was awkward) and at each airport she'd been intercepted by fellow Sisters who got her clean and fed and onto the next plane. She was worried that she'd have trouble finding her Sisters in SF because of the delay, but one met her at the gate. ^__^ I gave her my address. Hopefully I can continue to correspond with her, because she was just wonderful.
In San Francisco, we land just when my flight to Eugene is supposed to be taking off. (2pm) There is nothing to worry about, however, as a glance at the flight board shows that my flight is delayed until 4:25pm! >____<
So we wait.
And wait. x_x
Finally!
By the way, this is what the 'clouds' over San Francisco looked like. -___- Eyaahhh. I once flew up to Idaho and that pilot managed to make the most impressive landing I've ever been in. It went something like this: Descending, clouds, clouds, clouds, can't see a bloody freaking thin- Oh, fence! Runway! Holyshitwe'regonnadie! Gentle touchdown. @___@
So, yeah, after landing when the clouds were maybe all of 20 feet off the ground, I have no sympathy for San Francisco's pathetic excuse for fog.
Now this?
This is the sky over Oregon. And yet, we land without a hitch. :P
Mint declares that if Surprise gets a seat to himself, so does he. The flight attendant is amused, as are the passengers.
Mikey meets me as I emerge, tired and irritable, and whisks me off for supper. Took a week to get unpacked.
And thus concludes my vacation. ^_^
I waded through a bunch of old email today, so if you randomly got a reply to a comment made two months ago, well, that's why. ^^;; Will probably do it again tomorrow.
For the next hour and a half they can't decide if there's going to be a delay or not, and if so, how long. Finally, at boarding time, they decide that it's going to be a two hour delay and we'll be boarding at noon. Apparently, there is... fog in San Francisco.
Cue me wanting to strangle someone. Pilots are trained to fly IFR (instruments only) for a reason people!
From ten to noon, they keep making maybe and could be announcements about well, we're checking with Air Traffic Control again in fifteen minutes, and maybe if it's favorable we'll go. Finally I catch a snippit of conversation I wasn't supposed to hear and learn that our captain (a spunky older female) has twisted a few balls to get clearance to go. We board.
What's interesting at this point is that somewhere in all of the people coming and going and talking and waiting, I overheard someone talking about an Indian woman who was apparently wearing the same habit as Mother Theresa. (White with blue stripes) Interesting, but that was all. Or so I thought.
Guess who my seat mate wound up being? ^^;
I really wish I'd managed to get a picture of her. She was young, hadn't gotten promoted to full Sister all that long ago, and grew up in Calcutta. She has one other sister who is a Sister, at least one more non-religious sister, and four brothers. They grow all their own food on their property, and it takes ... I think she said five years to become a Sister? This is her first time out of India, and she'd been on planes for two days! @_@ Going from Calcutta to Dubai to New York to San Diego to San Francisco and her final destination was Spokane, Washington. Which was fascinating to me because that's just over the state border from where I grew up. She'll be missionarying there for 1 to 5 years (She grew up speaking Hindi, so our conversation was awkward) and at each airport she'd been intercepted by fellow Sisters who got her clean and fed and onto the next plane. She was worried that she'd have trouble finding her Sisters in SF because of the delay, but one met her at the gate. ^__^ I gave her my address. Hopefully I can continue to correspond with her, because she was just wonderful.
In San Francisco, we land just when my flight to Eugene is supposed to be taking off. (2pm) There is nothing to worry about, however, as a glance at the flight board shows that my flight is delayed until 4:25pm! >____<
So we wait.
And wait. x_x
Finally!
By the way, this is what the 'clouds' over San Francisco looked like. -___- Eyaahhh. I once flew up to Idaho and that pilot managed to make the most impressive landing I've ever been in. It went something like this: Descending, clouds, clouds, clouds, can't see a bloody freaking thin- Oh, fence! Runway! Holyshitwe'regonnadie! Gentle touchdown. @___@
So, yeah, after landing when the clouds were maybe all of 20 feet off the ground, I have no sympathy for San Francisco's pathetic excuse for fog.
Now this?
This is the sky over Oregon. And yet, we land without a hitch. :P
Mint declares that if Surprise gets a seat to himself, so does he. The flight attendant is amused, as are the passengers.
Mikey meets me as I emerge, tired and irritable, and whisks me off for supper. Took a week to get unpacked.
And thus concludes my vacation. ^_^
I waded through a bunch of old email today, so if you randomly got a reply to a comment made two months ago, well, that's why. ^^;; Will probably do it again tomorrow.