Invasion AKR Day 9

I woke up at about 1am with a very disturbing feeling in my belly. Not good.

Turns out maybe I shouldn’t have chosen a white russian at happy hour. Something about unpasturized milk in a third world country, or something like that.

Very bad idea indeed.

Well, I made it through the night with little sleep, and made it through breakfast.

We headed out to the airport quite early (3hrs) as some days, it gets very busy with 6-8 flights to the US. There wasn’t much (if any) lineups and we were all through baggage, customs, and security in about 20 minutes.

And we start the waiting game. The first leg of many it seems.

The plane to Houston was full, and nothing major happened during the flight. Getting through Houston however was the most annoying airport experience I have ever had.

You walk half a mile to get to customs, line up to electronically ‘apply’ to go through customs. Then you get in another line to go through customs. Then you pick up your bag, and head into another line to drop your bag off onto another carousel. Then you walk another half mile to security, and wait in line.

After all of that, you don’t know what terminal your in, and your ticket doesn’t say where your gate is. No problem right? Just go and find a departure screen.

Ummm, yeah. Turns out they don’t like to list all of the flights, or turn on all of the TV’s listing the flights.

Somewhere along the day, I noticed that maybe all the AC flights were out of terminal A, and I was in terminal D. Time to find the train.

As soon as I got into terminal A, I looked for some more screens, and again, found out that not all flights were listed, let alone all TV’s working.

OK, well I now have an hour (of my 2 1/2 layover) until I think I’m supposed to be getting onto a plane. Time to look for something I might be able to eat.

Welcome to ‘Merica. Where everything is greased down, even the ‘healthy alternative’ food restaurant. $13USD later, I’m throwing out my food after a bite and finding a washroom.

OK, not to rant too much about how I loathe everything about Houston (except for a few people who live there, and have my same sentiments about that town). Why is their TP dispensers lower than the bowl? You practically have to crawl on the ground to get any out!

In every washroom!

Oh well. At least my bags made it to Houston.

The 4hr flight to Calgary wasn’t too bad. The first half I watched the new Ben Stiller flick ‘Secret life of ??? ????’ The second half I decided to watch AnchorMan 2. Well, the movie wasn’t to my liking, and neither was my plumbing. With the turbulence and feeling bloated at 110% capacity made for a very uncomfortable 2 hrs.

We landed, and found out that the control tower didn’t leave a gate open for us to deplane. Yay! you can imagine my enjoyment of sitting on the tarmac for 20 minutes after being in the turbulent air with a malfunctioning digestive system!

After deplaning and walking as quick as I could while being completely drained of any nutrients I came across a bathroom.

Customs was pretty quick, and my bag surprisingly was one of the first off the carousel!

While in Houston, with some squandered WiFi, I was able to chat a bit with Cara, who offered to pick me up at the airport. It was very nice to see her on the other side of the slidy door, as I don’t think I would have survived a cab ride alone in my condition.

As she grabbed my bags and led me to her car full of vessels and half of a drug store, we were off on the road to home.

I wouldn’t suggest 14hrs of US air travel with food poisoning. Just cut your loss and rebook your flight and pay for an extra day or two at the resort your at.

All in all, aside from the Getting To/From, It was an awesome trip, with awesome people, at an awesome resort (Anthoney’s Key) in Roatan, with awesome diving in the caribbean at an awesome price. I’d do it all over again in a heart beat (well maybe not the United part).

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