Flying Home

The trip has been amazing, but I am so ready to be home. Our flight leaves at 12:40, so we were headed to the airport around 9:20. Good thing we left early because the lines were crazy to check in. The metro is so easy to take right under the airport and up into the terminal. Like Rome and other airports in Europe, your flight checks in at certain numbers, so we had to find our spot and get in line. The line was long and it moved so, so slow. It took us upwards of an hour and a half to get checked in. I can’t believe we left on time because there was such a long line behind us and I didn’t see how they could check them all in. Security was pretty smooth and quick and we got to our terminal where they didn’t have much food to eat before boarding. Their airports just don’t have the snack shops or fast food selections which is not much fun when you are hungry. We are flying Air Canada to Toronto and then US Airways to Charlotte and finally Myrtle Beach. The Air Canada plane was super nice and had TVs in the back of each seat! I watched Bride Wars, Hotel for Dogs, Escape to Witch Mountain, He’s Just Not That Into You and about half of Coraline. The food was actually pretty decent, some sort of chicken (the other choice was fish, weird!) and the flight staff was really friendly. The only thing that is annoying is that everything is done in three languages, so announcements go on forever.
Customs is never fun and this was no exception. It took a long while for our luggage to come out and then we went through boarder control where our guy was a butt hole. He was kind of on a power trip and was asking questions and then being very snappy about the answers. He asked how long we had been there, what we had bought, accused us of being cheap and that being the reasons Europeans didn’t like us and so on from there. Next was dropping off our bags and then going through security. I made the mistake of being the only female in my line, so I got chosen for the rub down security check because the person in our line for that was female and she couldn’t check males. So I got rubbed down from head to toe and then my camera bag searched, which I felt bad because there is so much junk and cords in there, but I survived and am looking forward to getting home.

The flight to Charlotte was good, small plane, but good. The weather had been bad up north earlier in the day and Toronto had delays to New York and New Jersey, but nothing about down here. We leave Charlotte to fly through the worst weather ever. I have only been on one flight that was so turbulent I didn't I was getting off until this one. The pilot told us he had flown around some of the bad weather, but we were up close and personal with the lightening and thunder, so I am not sure how far went went away from it. Did you know that lightening glows off the clouds in the sky? Well, it does. It was raining so hard and we were just bouncing around in the air. We finally get the warning that we are descending into Myrtle Beach when we seem to be circling. The pilot came back on to tell us that the weather was too bad on the ground at the airport to land. It took us one other failed attempt before we finally got to land 40 minutes late on the third try. I have NEVER been so glad to be off a plane and on solid ground. It was amazing to see mom and be home. My bed, kitty and hairdryer and hair straightener. It is also extremely exciting to be able to text again!