Best Travel Stories

by cruzanheart 2 Replies latest social humour

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  cruzanheart

  I've always loved to travel - my parents and I went "where the need was great" (just so happened Dad was offered a job in each instance too) in the Virgin Islands and Australia, and my husband worked for American Airlines (a/k/a The Evil Empire) for 11 years after we married. I love to hear other people's travel adventures, and I'll tell you one to get you started: One Thanksgiving I had a brilliant idea that we could fly to London for the 4-day weekend and avoid the traveling Americans going home for the holidays. I figured since the British didn't celebrate Thanksgiving there would be no problem going stand-by. Cautious Big Tex disagreed but he's very indulgent, so off we went. (This was pre-kids, BTW, so we were able to do this with only hand luggage.) Getting there wasn't a problem and we had a lovely visit with our friends. They charitably took us to Gatwick on Sunday at a really ungodly hour so we could catch the non-stop back to Dallas. Well, we got bumped. Fortunately, BT had an AA friend who worked at Gatwick and dear William got us on an Air UK flight to Glasgow so we could catch the AA flight from Glasgow to Chicago and then go from Chicago to Dallas. We got on the Air UK flight by the skin of our teeth and by this time it was noon and we hadn't had anything to eat since around 5 a.m. The flight attendants were very solicitous and apologetic that they didn't have time to load any meals for us, so to compensate they gave us each a bottle of wine. Which we drank. By the time we got to Glasgow I, at least, didn't NEED a plane. We caught the Glasgow/Chicago flight alright but once in Chicago we came to a grinding, total halt. No offense, but I NEVER want to see that airport again! We were stuck there for 8 hours with the rest of the Americans who were trying to get home so they could go to work on Monday, and by the time we got home to Dallas we'd been 25 hours traveling and all I wanted to do was get away from all moving vehicles of any sort. Husband took that opportunity to make me swear I'd never suggest flying on a holiday again!

  Your turn!

  Nina
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  larc

  Wow, that was your best trip? I would hate to see your worst one. Well, I do understand that trips can go bad. I will tell you about mine. I once taught a one week management training program in Dundee Scotland. This was the last of three weeks I spent doing this in Europe. Well, I got the air ride from Edinburough to Heathrow. So far, so good. Well, at Heathrow, we found out that the plane had a mechanical problem and there would be a delay. That made me nervous, because I don't want to know that a plane I am going to ride on had a mechanical problem. Well, after several hours, we were airborn for New York. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, I had missed my connection to Dayton, Ohio. They told me, they could let me stay over night at a motel or fly me to a city near my home. Ordinarily, I would have stayed over night, just to get a glimpse of the big apple (NY). However, I was sick of being away, so I took a plane to Columbus, Ohio, just to be closer to home. The next day, I took a Greyhound bus from Columbus to Dayton. The next day at work, I could not accomplish a thing in 8 hours. I was a zombie.
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  Nanoprobe

  Nina:

  I have a lot of great trip stories, but I'll post this rather crazy incident. First of all the final destination is an Asian country with a 14 hour time difference than Dallas. Needless to say I have this serious jet lag problem. And we're staying in the home of an Asian family, which is totally wonderful until the big problem. We go out to eat and I order chicken, now I think it taste a little funny, but I'm part of a large group and so I don't want to make a scene. And ''m really hungry, so I do something stupid----I eat the chicken. That night we are bedded down in the master bedroom, the family---husband, wife & little baby are sleeping on the living room floor. (I know, I know, we should have been the ones on the floor, but they're Asians and soooo polite) And in this tiny apartment are the wife's two brothers who live with the family while they attend college. It's almost wall-to-wall people and I have FOOD POISONING. I am so sick and I have to climb over wall-to-wall people to make it to the bathroom. I am consumed with t errible diarrhea and vomiting and I think I am going to die. Those poor people, they just laid there pretending to sleep to give me some privacy. I couldn't even leave the bathroom to get my husband until almost morning. I did live but my husband simply tells me: EVERYONE knows better than eating CHICKEN in a foreign country.

  Edited by - nanoprobe on 8 September 2002 14:26:40