Traveling

Traveling is always an adventure and this trip was no exception

I flew from Atlanta to Philadelphia (and, boy, are my arms trite) for some training on cloud computing using Amazon Web Services.  My flight was to leave Atlanta at 6:05 PM.  The flight is about ninety minutes long.  Once there I’d rent a car, drive to the hotel, and then grab some dinner in Philly.  The plan was simple.

I got to the airport in plenty of time to make the flight without having to rush.  When I got to the gate I found that the flight had been delayed by two hours due to bad weather in the northeast.  The agent at the gate, while announcing this, stated that the delay was dictated from the ground in Philadelphia and was only estimated.  We might leave earlier.  Yeah, fat chance.  However, she was kind enough to inform us that if we left the gate area and the flight left before eight, it would be our fault for missing it.  Apparently it would be too hard to make an announcement throughout the concourse that the flight had been cleared for early take off and to return to the gate.  Apparently the busiest airport in the world isn’t capable of that.

So, I passed the time at the airport the way any normal human being would: in the airport bar.  It was there that I found that the overpriced beers at Hartsfield-Jackson were less expensive than the beers I was gouged for at Aaron’s Amphitheater during the Iron Maiden show.  Think about that the next time you drink a ten-dollar Budweiser at a concert.

The flight did take off just after eight, as they had estimated and was fairly uneventful.  It was a full flight, but I had reserved a window seat.  When I got to my seat a woman asked me if I would switch seats with her fiancée so they could sit together.  She waited for me to shuffle all the way in to my seat before asking.  I suppose it would have made too much sense to ask me before I made two people move and sat down.  Having no real reason to say no, I acquiesced and moved to the back of the plane to sit in a middle seat.  I need to stop doing favors for strangers which will never be returned and be more of a me first person, but then I don’t generally vote Republican.  I’m just not enough of a Randian to claim selfishness as a virtue.

As we approached Philly, the pilot made the announcement that we were preparing for landing and to turn off all electronic devices, blah blah blah.  So, I bookmarked John Scalzi’s Redshirts on the iPad and put it away.  Then I sat and watched as we circled Philly again and again and again. 

I got to see a great light show as another storm sat over the airport for a while.  Eventually, we made a bumpy landing.  Once we were on the ground the pilot got back on the intercom for his “welcome to Philadelphia” speech.  We were told that we were third in line to land when another storm had rolled in so we had to fly around the weather for a while before we could land.  However, because of lightning in the area the ground crew would not roll out the ramp.  We had to sit in the plane on the ground and wait for the storm to pass before we could disembark.  Lovely.

After another boring delay we were finally allowed off the plane.  As I was waiting to leave I overheard a conversation between one of the stewardesses and some passengers.  Apparently we were nearly rerouted to Baltimore as were the flights in line behind us.  Philly, Baltimore, can you really tell one shithole from another?  I was just glad to be at some destination.

So I get off the flight, get the rental car, and then I drive to the hotel.  I’d like to note that this is my first time in Philly, so obviously I’m going to drive.  Every city is under constant construction and Philadelphia is no exception.  Driving in the dark, in the pouring rain, through construction, and having no idea where I was going just added to the excitement of the trip.  Sometimes reality is more like a video game than I’d want considering I won’t respawn at the last checkpoint if I fail.

I finally made it to the hotel and checked in.  It was just after midnight and I realized I hadn’t eaten dinner.  Of course, there were no restaurants in the area open in the small hours on a Monday morning, but there was a Wawa within walking distance.  So, off I set.

Somewhere during that walk the thought did arise that wandering the streets of downtown Philadelphia after midnight, in the rain, looking for a convenience store hoagie was a completely safe and reasonable thing to do.  I’ve never read anything in the paper about a mugging or stabbing that started out like this, have you?

It seems that more of the stories in my life resemble things you’d read in the police blotter or see in a slasher film than the beginning of a prono.  It’s never, “Thanks for helping, Greg.  I’d like to pay you for this but I seem to have misplaced my purse.  Is there some other way I could pay you back?”  Never.

Such is my lot in life.