Road Block............

What day is it? Not so sure ? October 12, 2009

Let's start today off with a riddle: (This is for you Tom we know you love riddles)

If your travel agent has you booked in a hotel not to leave until Saturday October 10th and your airline tickets say Saturday October 10th.....leaving at 12:25 am. Do you go to the airport on:

A. Friday night
B. Saturday night

If you chose (A) Friday night go to the head of the class and travel on to Sydney.
If you chose (B) Saturday night pull up a piece of rug because you are sleeping in the Singapore Airport!!!!

Rich and I count ourselves (OK, we maybe a little presumptuous) at least near the top of the bell curve when it comes to intelligence. We both read the tickets many times, and obviously our travel agent does this for a living! She had us booked with check out from the hotel on Saturday morning!

So we get to the airport Saturday night at 9:00pm with what we felt was plenty of time to shop in the airport, have dinner and then board our plane to Sydney. As we approached the nice man at the Singapore Airline desk, he says “OH...AH...MMMM....you see you were to be here last night since your flight left after 12AM that would be Saturday!” Wonderful, Rich is flying on a regular ticket so no problem just throw money at it! In fact I think someone has a T-Shirt that says this. So they bring us over to another counter, there is a lot of talk that all results in Sir, you can rebook your flight on the next available flight........BUT your wife is traveling on miles therefore we cannot get her out until Wednesday!!! Thank God my husband loves me........he REALLY loves me he says.........”I am NOT leaving my wife in Singapore!!” Phew.........Thank God for that.

So the very nice people from Singapore Airlines ( I truly mean this) worked with him for about two and half hours to rebook us both on the 13th but list us on standby on a flight in the morning. Maybe we would have a chance to get out. If not, and it is Sunday night you guessed it Andrea stays in Singapore in lock down at a very nice hotel and Rich heads to Sydney to work.

So the first thing we do, is find someplace to have a drink. Of course most of the airport is closed by now, but we go to that very nice hotel's lobby sports bar and have a drink and watch some Soccer or Football in Singapore. After our drink it is time to pick out our bed. Rich thinks the chairs look nice and I say “are you kidding me, I can't sleep on chairs that are permanently placed four inches apart meaning that every four inches you have a nice lip of plastic.” I am eying the floor. Rich says “Oh no! come on Andrea you will look like a homeless person.” OK, answer me this folks how does sleeping on chairs make you look like you live in the lap of luxury and this is just something you do to pass the time. I opt for the floor. Rich won't let me sleep on the floor by myself, there goes that love thing again. So he sits at my head leaning against a wall, places the luggage cart around me puts his legs in front of the cart so that no one will take off with our cart and puts his arms through my purse. Quite a site, now I would have gotten a picture folks, but you see I was ASLEEP! I even used my earplugs and eye mask, Rich was so proud.

Around 4AM I wake up and Rich is getting coffee you see we have to be at the desk at 4am, which is why we did not rent a hotel room for three hours. So Rich travels over to the desk where they tell him. I am sorry sir but we cannot find your wifes ticket. OK no ticket, no stand by, you following this folks I may end up living in Singapore!
After about an hour of talk and research they find my ticket in the system and put us on stand by. It is now 5:45 they tell us to go have a seat and pray....By this time we looked homeless. So we took a seat and waited and prayed and low and behold they called us over at 6am well before the time they said they would. It was either the prayer or the fact that we looked homeless and remember NO ONE is HOMELESS in Singapore, so they put us on the flight. Thank you, Thank you.

So we had a pleasant flight to Singapore and again my husband proved his love he gave me the window seat in the exit row and he took a middle seat in the middle section of the plane. He is sure he was exposed to H1N1 by the gentleman next to him that seemed to lack normal hygiene practices. Now folks remember what Rich does for a living. What a trooper.

We finally arrived in Sydney at 5:30pm on Sunday afternoon. Our taxi driver seemed like it was his first day on the job. As soon as he picked us up and used a crow bar to put all our luggage into his trunk because doesn't ever cab driver carry two spear tires to pick folks up from the airport. We told him our hotel which not only is listed as one of the nicest in Sydney but is actually used as a fold out picture in the travel book we have. He says ah, let me put in GPS what is the address. OK, Richard's patience are weaning and I whisper “come on honey be nice he has us and our baggage captive!” We finally find our hotel because we see the sign. We are given a wonderful room overlooking the harbor, the Opera House along with Executive privileges similar to what we had in Singapore. So that free drink was calling our name with no time to change or shower we head up for a glass of the best Australian wine looking like homeless folk. We apologize to the concierge and tell him we will never look like this again...after our drink and showers we fall into a deep sleep.

Tomorrow will be better..........I am sure of it.

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