August 2, 2007
Here we are in Venezuela. The trip was miserable. We missed our flight, lost our luggage, and wound up in Valencia with four of our six bags.
We started out at the American curbside check-in. This made perfect sense as I had booked my flight with them. We waited for about twenty minutes before the fellow weighed our bags and informed us that we were in the wrong place. He told us that the first leg of our trip was on Alaska Air Lines so we would have to check in with them.
The line at Alaska was excruciating. We tried to do self check-in, but since all of our bags were overweight, they made us go to full serve. With fifty minutes left before our flight was to depart the woman proceeded to help two other people behind me in line. By the time she got to us there was barely enough time to check our bags. We got them in just under the wire. Of course we had to pay $25 per bag for overweight charges and since we were flying both Alaska and American, we had to pay these fees for both airlines (that works out to $300). After twenty minutes of messing around she told us that we would never make our plane and she would have to rebook us on a later one.
The next one was full so she called over her trainer. This woman managed to get us in on the 12:00 American flight to Dallas where we would transfer over to another American plane to Miami. Our bags had already been sent off through L.A. and would arrive in Miami before us.
We arrived at Miami International some time around midnight Eastern Time only to discover that none of our bags were there. Further investigation revealed that four of the bags were on the red eye and would arrive the next morning at 5, but two of them had only been checked as far as L.A. Three people with six bags check in at Seattle, but only four of their bags make it to their destination; that makes perfect sense doesn’t it?
After an hour and a half of waiting in line and discussing the problem I am told that American will contact Alaska first thing in the morning to locate the two missing pieces. There are two flights they can be placed on that will have them arrive in Miami before we fly out at 7:30 pm. I tell them to call me when they have more information. We stumbled off to our hotel, arriving at 2:00 a.m. only to fall into bed and pass out.
When I awaken at 10:00 I discover that not only has the airline not called, they have scheduled our four bags to be delivered sometime within the next six hours and they still haven’t contacted Alaskan about the other two. We finally managed to catch up with our four pieces, but the other two didn’t arrive until sometime after we left for Venezuela.
The Miami airport is a dark, dirty little place. There are some nice shops on the international side, but it is not one of the nicest airports I have ever been to. Nonetheless, we spent a good deal of time there over the course of twenty-four hours. The flight to Venezuela was amusing as the booze was free, but they only had whiskey. The meal was tasty though and we had the opportunity to get to know some of our fellow teachers as we were all on the same plane.
Now let’s talk about our apartment. We live on the fifth floor of a building called “Titanium”. It has three bedrooms, two baths, and a beautiful kitchen with a washing machine. It is brand new so there are some little things missing. There are no towel racks and no mirror in one bathroom and no medicine cabinet in either one. Pots, pans, and flatware are scarce, although they have provided us with a cash gift to purchase some of these things.
The real treat to this place is on the outside; there are no fewer than sixteen buildings currently under construction around us: the workers show up every morning around 6:30 and work until 5:30 or 6:00 at night. All day long they hammer and saw and yell at each other; it’s fantastic! I only hope they don’t work on the weekends.
MJR
