Deck The Halls With SHITTY Airlines

Look at me! Look at me! Posting frequently(ish)!!

Okay. Fasten your cyber-seatbelts. This ride is going to be emotionally bumpy for me (with rage) and probably (hopefully) hilarious for you to laugh at my expense.

If you somewhat-regularly read my blog, you know I don't have the best luck with travelling. I usually get emotional wherever I'm travelling and the last few times I have had bizarre experiences always ending in, "would you like some complimentary vodka with your cranberry-apple juice?" (See post where I moved seats 6 times, not exaggerating). To add a cherry to the cake, I got the flu three days before I was set to leave. I had been popping Advil to keep my fever down and luckily by the time I was supposed to leave it had settled into a mild cold. It was more tolerable than a fever but wasn't ideal.

I got to the airport on time even though I had to trek to Terminal 4 (American Airlines is the only US carrier that flies out of T4...OMEN) and I was jittery, so I got an Egg-McMuffin (which was awesome because McDonalds in Spain doesn't tend to have breakfast) and did my makeup infront of judging Spaniards. My suitcase weighed 18 kilos when it was allowed to weigh 23 (which is about 10 lbs. under) and despite my tummy-ache/T4 blunder, things seemed to be lining up! (This is what meteorologists usually call the "calm before the storm")

I already had some reservations before I left because I was travelling to JFK in New York and only had an hour and fifty minutes for my layover. This wouldn't be too big of a deal but between security and customs I figured I might run into some problems. I vowed beforehand I would try be as forward as necessary to catch my flight. I got on the plane, trying to decide which side my seat was on, when I realized there weren't "sides"...this was a one-aisle 6-seats-to-a-row 757. These are usually the planes reserved for non-transatlantic flights. As we're sitting in the plane, waiting for everyone to board, the capitain announced that we would be leaving with a slight delay because there was trouble getting everyone in the aircraft. Most people in the back had put 2 bags above in storage and nobody else had room to put their one bag...or people where complete dipshits and put their jackets up there. Thirty minutes later, the stewardesses managed to Tetris the luggage on the plane and we were taxiing. This is when the captain announced to us that we were topped off with fuel but that if there were any problems landing in New York, we wouldn't have enough gas. For this reason, we would be taking a slight pit-stop for gas in Canada. I stayed sane through all of this because this Asian steward was giving his best effort to translate the captain's messages but was severely falling short of anything comprehendable, not to mention his long awkward pauses while somebody was undoubtedly looking up vocabulary in an iPhone app. I was surrounded by elderly Spaniards who have the mouths of experienced truckers, so I enjoyed their confused and racial comments and tried to close my eyes, thinking of how much money I could make translating for an airline instead of how our plane could probably run out of fuel at any moment and plummet us into the icy shark-infested oceans.

Another thought that came to me was that I should be thankful that I didn't have to change seats or have any mishaps that required complimentary vodka. I was going to have problems catching another flight in New York, but this was their fault, not my lack of assertiveness through security...so I felt less at fault.

I leaned my chair back, popped two sleeping pills, and passed out. About two hours later I woke up for dinner, but I was so groggy from the pills that I don't even remember what I ate. Once they took our trash I fell back asleep for about 15 minutes before I was abruptly woken again by one of the stewardesses spilling water all over my arm. Apparently Clumsy Cathy was pouring a glass of water and missed the cup by what had to be a good six inches. I was wearing my fleece jacket, my only jacket I had access to. Cathy decided it was best to clean the metal food-cart first, then tosses some napkins on me and says "Oh, that wasn't what I was aiming for." Dear Cathy, I'm enthralled you weren't trying to drench me with shitty airline water, but my arm is effing cold right now and I'm already sick so excuse me if you have left me less than satisfied with your lack of apology and good intentions. So suck it. I laid my chair back and forgot about Cathy.

Until two hours later when Cathy spilled orange juice on me. And then offered me some free vodka to go with my cranberry juice to make up for it.

I woke up much later and we were nearing our pit-stop. I knew my fate so I was not worried about time anymore. Six hours into the seven-hour-turned-eight-hour flight we land in Goose Bay, Canada. Near Happy Valley. The weather was overcast to add a certain omenous feel to the inappropriately-named city. The captain gets on the loud speaker, informing us that it shouldn't take long to get gas because we were the only plane at the airport (I was starting to feel like I was in The Hills Have Eyes...I was truly expecting angry mutants to hobble onto the plan and kill us all). Li Wang continued the Spanglish commentary and the yayas (old Spanish bitties) called him a slew of very bad words that Jeri has forbidden me to put in my blog unless I use euphemisms (which if I were to do so would be C U Next Tuesday...quite comical coming from frail octogenarians who aren't Betty White).

"Shouldn't take long" turned into an hour and by that time everyone had Googled Goose Suck, Canada and discovered that the only people who really live in the city are the people who work at the airport and their families. This made my The Hills Have Eyes theory even more tangible and I was getting a little nervous. I figured it wouldn't take long for the townies to destroy the old peeps which wouldn't leave me much time to save myself...plus we all know how worthless Cathy is so her unapologetic manner would doom us all to hell for SURE.

Hour #8, we depart Goose Bump, Canada, and head for JFK. I should mention right now that I had unintentionally and unofficially met the captain before the flight. Captain Carl (actual name) was on the same tram as me that was taking people from T4 to even further out in T4. The only reason he caught my attention was a.) he was wearing captain wings and b.) he was talking in English...and since T4 is mostly European Union flights, nobody around me seemed to speaking my language. Unfortunately for me, Carl was talking about how he was out the night before with some buddies and ended up at a gay bar. I tried to keep a poker face while this was happening but I'm pretty sure my eyes rolled back into my head halfway through his story and prayed to the baby Jesus he wasn't flying my plane.

So Captain Carl (of course) announces it's only a short 3 hour flight to JFK and we now have enough gas to land (yippee). My 7 hour flight had not-so-quickly turned into a 12 hour flight. We landed in New York City at 4 p.m. I was supposed to be landing in Indianapolis in an hour. Once we land, and I tell Jeri I'm JUST getting in New York, Captain Carl tells us that (since they knew they would be incredibly delayed before we even took off) the American Airlines attendants had been working to re-connect our missed connections so we could make it to our destinations on time. Oh and Merry Christmas. (Li Wang really nailed that one home with a "Fe-rees Navidad" that warmed the hearts of everyone it touched).

I start to power-walk off the plane (which is almost identical to a normal walking pace for anybody who doesn't have short stubby legs) and see an American Airlines agent in a neon-orange vest who is dedicated to "Express Connections"...a service that American Airlines is apparently all too comfortable with providing when they screw people over harder than Enron (p.s. this anger is all aftermath...at the time I was thankful and eager to catch my new flight and most importantly be home before Christmas Eve! [I wish, knowing what I know now, I could have somehow transcended upon myself to spit in my face or smack the back of my head to get me to wake up & for being so naive and stupid])

My Express Connection came in a fancy neon envelope that matched Mr. Express Connections' vest and was supposed to speed me through long lines such as customs and security. This definitely had an advantage because they didn't ask me any questions and I didn't have to lie about how many bottles of wine I really had smuggled in my suitcase. By the time I got through, it was 4:30ish and my flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30. I had collected all of my unused & unneeded assertive energy and decided I needed to use it at the baggage claim to get my suitcase first and "speed walk" to my flight. This resulted in me (annoyingly, I'm sure) buzzing around the baggage claim as if I was a hamster trapped on a horizontal wheel while all of the normal people stood still like patient human beings. 40 minutes later I found myself huddled with a group of Americans who were around my age. My immediate response was to be mildly embarrassed to be screaming in English with a group of tourists (and it took me awhile to realize we were in America now, so it was okay to be yelling in English...and to look American...culture shock in my own turf) but I got over it when I realized they all were ten times angrier than I was because they were ten times savvier than I am and had bigger cojones than me. Their cojones (individually) were the size of Epcot, where mine can best be described as pinheads or normally nonexistant. At first I thought they were all batshit crazy so I just nodded with everything they said and tried to interject "this is so shitty" whenever possible just to get on their side...by the way they were yelling I figured it was the best plan of action. This one kid, the only boy, was as nerdy as can be, with a lisp and bottom braces, and kept spitting about finding a manager. He huffed off a few times and was gloating about his victory raising hell, but he didn't ever seem to realize we still hadn't gotten our baggage. From what I can gather, it's illegal to speak comprehensive English if you work at the JFK airport. Everyone around the baggage claim was Jamaican or Russian (my best guess) and were more worthless than an asshole on your elbow. We did hear one of them mention to someone that they simply forgot to unload our bags, which explains why it took them two hours to do so...as absurd as it is. While standing with my new angry American friends, we all put gathered information together and realize that the reason they took such a small plane was to save money instead of weather in New York like they had first claimed. They had also rebooked almost everybody's flights through La Guardia...except mine. I didn't get off scotch free, though, my new Express Connection was to Detroit, then Indianapolis at 11 p.m. All of them were gasping and huffing about this La Guardia situation, which I didn't fully understand since I have absolutely no interest in New York, its airports, its incomprehensible employees, or its ineffectiveness. I had just come from MADRID, SPAIN, the capital of all things slow and lazy (which I am used to).............and this was eighty times worse. I did comprehend one of the girls' lividity when she said that American had put her on a connecting flight through New Jersey. She raised a bunch of hell with someone, though, and got put on a direct flight from JFK. I should have followed her lead. That's what effective people do.

I got my bags. It was 6:00. I had a half hour to get to Gate 2 from Gate 6 (it was a circle) and I figured they had already started boarding.

Did I make it? Did I miss it? Did I get put on another flight? Unfortunately this isn't a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novel, so I'll fill you in on the other half of the story soon. :)

Ruffo, Hazing, And A Partridge In A Pear Tree

Hi all. I'm sorry. Again. For not posting in so long. Good news to all who have complained to me...I've made it one of my (many) New Year's Resolutions to blog atleast once every two weeks. Since I have informed you of this, you are now also responsible to remind me if I falter. :)

Well it's been since Thanksgiving...a lot has happened but I don't remember anything exciting about Thanksgiving to tell you except that I couldn't get my 1st graders to understand that it was the Pilgrims & Indians who met in America...in the end they all think it was the Pilgrims and the Italians...if there's one thing I've learned as a teacher, it's that you can't reach them all. I didn't have any plans here for Thanksgiving this year, so I bought Turkish food (thought I was pretty clever) and watched T.V. Luckily Rebecca & her friends were having a meal later in the week and she invited me. It was perfect...they made turkey breasts, green bean casserole (which I don't love but since I don't have access to it, it was delish), mashed potatoes, gravy, and broccoli & cheese casserole. I was going to make cookies that I had but set the oven for Farenheit instead of Celcius which burnt the shit out of them. It was a nice Thanksgiving dinner...and one of my teachers on the actual day gave me a present, because she's new this year and didn't exactly know what the holiday was all about. She gave me reindeer earmuffs & some cute Christmas-themed clothespins. It was just so sweet & adorable. It made me laugh.

Christmas was also pretty hilarious...it was a time to teach me how much America has an influence on Spanish culture. I started the Christmas holiday in class by asking my 1st graders how to say Navidad in English. One of them eagerly raised her hand and yelled, "JINGLE BELLS!!!" haha...so I started laughing and I said "Jingle Bells?" and she was super adamant, "Jess!!! Jess, Jingle Bells, jew know....(starts singing) Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, jingle all da crail!" I usually try to stifle laughing at the kids but I just couldn't get ahold of myself and ended up crying, laughing so hard. This same student, Carolina, is one of my favorites. Her brother Pedro is in 5th grade and they both have these doe eyes and innocent demeanors and are happy all the time. Turns out Carolina knows a lot about Christmas (and if you try to correct her she gets sassy, which I love haha). I asked what the name of Santa's special red-nosed reindeer's name was and she (eagerly, as always) told me his name was Ruffo (roof-oh). I giggled, as always, and told her it was so close, but his name was Rudolph, or Rudolfo in Spanish. She, matter of factly, told me that no, in Spain "we say Ruffo". I looked at the teacher who rolled her eyes and told me they call him Rudolph, haha. It was the best beginning to the crazy weeks of Christmas.

Christmas quickly became a typical Chelsea-holiday. I made a craft that all of the kids thought was bad-ass and by the time we finished I was sick of the craft, almost sick of Christmas, and begging for normalcy. My grand idea this year was making paper stockings that the kids could "sew" together with yarn and hang up to get candy from Santa. I'm very crafty but sometimes not too detail-oriented, so I drew the template wrong, making things more difficult than necessary. I also found out quickly that I might have doomed myself because I told the kids all these amazing stories about Santa and the chimney etc. etc. (my 6th graders still believe...Rocio, one of my English teachers, told the kids they could hang up the stockings for "Santa" in air quotes, and about half them replied, panic stricken, with, ".......so he's not real?!" Oops. In their defense my brother has still to this day not actually verbally recognized he knows it isn't true). I told my kids "be sure to hang them in the living room! If you don't have a chimney you can just tack it on the wall or put it some place visible, I'm sure he'll find it!"

All of them got excited and decided they were going to hang it in their bedroom...throwing me into crazy mode screaming "NO!! Noooo...Santa doesn't go into bedrooms! You have to put it some place visible!!" One of my innocent first graders made sure to tell me that he was going to put it someplace very visible...just in his bedroom. Finally I got smart and told them, "LOOK! This is very important. You need to put this someplace visible, and since someplace visible is probably a common area, you have to ask your parents for permission. Tell your parents what it's for and ask them where the best place is to put it." It's scary sometimes how wonderful I am at lying to these kids (see St. Patrick's Day last year...I caught one of my kids last week leprechaun hunting at recess). I could just imagine in my head, them waking up Christmas morning looking at their little cotton-ball covered paper sock wondering why Santa doesn't love them enough to think they are worth three pieces of hard candy. Then asking me why I lied to them.....or worse, making me explain why he didn't come. Even my best lies have their limits...

I was supposed to go to London the Friday before I came home, but my teachers ended up scheduling the off-school-property dinner that night. They have a luncheon with all the nuns each year but they wanted to be able to drink and have fun sans-nuns. I don't think they had one last year but if they did I wasn't invited...and most of my teachers were really anxious for me to go so I decided I couldn't miss it. It was totally worth it...I met a few of them in the Metro to go together and they told me before I go to prepare for the "novatadas". Not understanding what that was they quickly explained it to me and it turned out it was hazing. I laughed, figuring they were joking. Except when I got there I quickly found out they totally weren't. Once we all got seated they wanted somebody to give a speech. I looked around, smiling cluelessly, wondering who was going to do it but for some reason somebody insisted I do it. I thought they were joking so I laughed it off and was like "yeah yeah, ha ha." Until they pulled me out of my chair and started pounding on the table yelling "SPEECH! SPEECH!" with their silverware. This is why I love them. So I asked if I could give the speech in English and they said yes. So I started to say that I was glad to be there with all of them, etc. etc. until the guys (who I don't work with) started boo-ing me and yelling "NO EENGLEESH! SPANISH!!!!! NO UNDERSTAND!!!"............................and while I'm not shy at all it's really difficult to give a speech in a different language when you're trying to impress native speakers. I survived and ended up saying something like "I'm happy to be here with good friends, good wine, and good food. Let's drink." Haha....classy I know but they were pleased. We ate an 80-course meal with an open bar of champagne and wine....I don't like either but I got strong-armed into drinking more than I probably would have considering the circumstances. Plus wine affects me quickly. While I was mildly affected by the drinking they were peer-pressuring me into, they all got completely shit-faced which was so hilarious. SO HILARIOUS. I was the most normal person there. It was nice though because I was able to let my hair down and be more of myself instead of school-appropriate. We got to the restaurant at 9:30 and didn't leave until 2 a.m. In the time we were there they had started atleast three (bread only) food-fights (which was hilarious as well because the principal was there, who's like mid-50's and terrifyingly intimidating). I figured when we were done I could just walk home and get a pretty early night...I had no idea they were actually wanting to go OUT OUT afterwards. The teachers at my school are between the ages of 26-38, I wanna say, and I believe many of them are kanoodling or have kanoodled in the past. There are two couples that are married and another who live together. Anyways, they all wanted to go out to a disco so I figured I'd tag along for a little bit (plus it was apparently not an option to leave, they wouldn't let me when I tried). We went to a few clubs/bars and everywhere they went they continued their mini-hazing by introducing me everywhere as "guiri" which means foreigner (it's like gringo in Mexico) and trying to find me a boyfriend. Everytime I tried to slip out they yelled "you can't leave! We have to find you a boyfriend!!!!" I was completely enjoying myself, however, because all of the teachers who I don't work with tend to avoid me (because they're afraid they'll have to speak English) were so drunk they actually WANTED to speak to me in English. It was hilarious. So completely hilarious. "Chelsea!! It's very crowded inside....many peeeeple! No can go, beeecause dare are too much peeeeple. Ees eemposseeble!" After 3 a.m. it's hard to find a place that is not completely packed or has a line a mile long outside so I was finally released and got home around 5:30 a.m. Even though I had hoped to get home sooner, I think we all bonded quite well and I was even able to tell them how I think it's funny Spaniards say "jew" instead of "you" when they pronouce words. So now in Spanish when we speak they all refer to me as "judio" (jew) just to keep the humor in both languages.

Right before I left I got pretty sick with an annoying mix between a cold and a flu. One day I had a fever and was incredibly dizzy. The next three days I was congested, coughing, and couldn't breathe. This made making it to the airport extremely difficult and annoying. Luckily I didn't have any problems when I left...........little did I know what was going to happen once we were in the land and once I finally landed. That will be a long post that I will write on Sunday.