If you wanted a day to feel really long, really long and for whatever reason you want to absolutely nothing for one very long day what would you do?,?!
I would suggest you book a very long flight.
Overseas.
Tight connections.
The thrill of a connection that is less than an hour is that racing heart beat when the airplane just sits on the tarmac.
The thrill of feeling like you are Amazing Race when you land you have 25 minutes to race across the airport dodging passengers without the urgent need to move. The thrill of that 25 minutes disappearing to 15 minutes because it took forever for the airline doors to open. So you could say my day has been really long and really thrilling.
All the things you want your vacation to be.
And I experienced the added joy of sitting on the airplane at the gate for almost two hours while some gauge is fixed. During that time I call the reservations center to re-book our international connecting flight in which we will miss due to that tight connection only to find out all flights that day are full. Looks like a full day layover.
Now before you feel bad for me and my husband that is not how this journey ends. Our flight landed in Munich almost an hour late. I was actually looking forward to a day in one of my favorite world cities.
We hustled off the airplane on the slim chance our connecting flight was still there. And wouldn't you know it, an airline representative was there at the exit gare with our names and final destination.
"Hey, that's me" I tell her. She tells my husband and I the flight is waiting but we must hurry. We will clear customs and the gate is about 400 meters.
We run.
We cut to the front of the line at customs. Customs officer looks at our boarding pass and stamps our passport without a word.
We run.
We run.
We kept on running. Backpacks and all dodging people and not saying excuse me.
At the end of the airport and 4000 meters later, we know we did something wrong.
My husband starts asking directions from what looks like maintenance workers. We end up in the security line. We go right to the front again. We have a plane to catch and don't carry how many people we piss off. My husband breezes through and runs to the gate, another 400 meters. Me, I'm much more lucky than that, I get selected for additional screening.
My name is now being called over the speaker system. "...please proceeed immediately to gate 18," Security feels my pain and lets me go after half of my items are outside my bag. I grab everything without stuffing it in and run.
I was the last one on the plane. I'm hot and sweaty but I made it. My husband Dan is not going to Athens Greece without me.
By the time we arrive in Athens, I have been on an airplane for 19 hours and up for 26 hours. No, no sleep for me. I'll do that later. After vacation.
Until then, Prost.
