Travel Excitement

Here is an update on our travel so far. Yesterday morning we got up at 6, loaded up the car (completely....the guys were both holding luggage in their laps while I drove) and then we headed to the airport. Scott's flight was scheduled to depart just 30 minutes after ours which worked out perfectly for arriving together.

I believe Scott's flight left on-time. At first our flight, scheduled to leave at 9:20am was delayed due to the fact that the aircraft was stuck somewhere else in poor weather. After an hour delay, we boarded the plane. We sat on board and watched as the luggage was loaded. We sat and we sat and we sat....after an hour of sitting on the parked plane (2 hours after orginal departure time), the captain came onto the speaker to inform the cabin that we were not able to take off because there was a window open in the cockpit that was unable to close...they were waiting for a tool to fix the problem. After another 30 minutes the repair crew boards the plane to work on the problem. It is at this point that some passengers (who had already missed connecting flights, meetings, etc) decided to get up and get off the plane. Once the cockpit window was closed....then the luggage carrier came back and we sat and watched as they unloaded the bags of those passengers who had decided to leave the fun. 3 hours and 20 minutes later we are ready to take off....it is now 12:40....our flight to Houston is scheduled to leave Amsterdam at 1:45pm....it is supposed to be a 2 hour flight.

We arrived in Holland at 2:05pm, all the while stewardesses are assuring us that there have been many delays in Amsterdam due to bad weather so when we get on the ground we should just run to the gate. :) There was a semi-stampede of people trying to exit the aircraft as quickly as possible.....I believe at least half the aircraft either missed connections or they were about to miss connections. Brad & I did our best to keep from getting run over.

Once we got to the terminal, Suzette our wheelchair assistance woman, helped us determine that our flight had indeed just left and we would then go to guest services at KLM to see about getting onto another connecting flight. Brad Wims was determined that we would be crossing the Atlantic that day. We waited in line for one hour, then spoke with the guest assistance woman for another hour about different options. We could have flown into JFK but then we would have spent the night in NY just to catch another flight Sunday NIGHT to flight back to Houston....YUCK! It was the same story if we flew into Chicage....SO.....we ended up staying the night in Amsterdam. After much discussion about appropriate transportation and accomodations.....Suzette, who was still with us (3 hours later).....took us to find something to eat and then to find a taxi to the hotel. Suzette kept saying, "it's a lot easier to get help in these matters in the US...isn't it?" She was a very sweet woman...we were blessed to have her help all afternoon. She was with us from the moment we got to Amsterdam terminal....until we got into our taxi to go to the hotel. Having her help was wonderful!

So, 12 hours of travel time in airpoirts to travel 600 miles.....I hope we don't continue this pace for the rest of the trip to the States. :)

Right now it is 9:10am in Amsterdam. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 10:10am and on an entire board of "on-time" flights, the one to Houston has in red words next to it "delayed until 11:10am." I think I am having dejavu....

I will post again once our feet hit the ground in America.....we are REALLY ready!