Distressed Passenger

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Getting up at 4.30 in the morning when you are massively in sleep deficit was easier than I thought it would be. Joel kindly offered to take us to the airport, and Becky and Tim also surfaced to say another goodbye which was good of them. It was extremely cold outside, about 0 degrees F, and the car's windows had ice on them. We got to the airport in plenty of time, and we said goodbye to Joel who had been a fantastic host all week, and it was great to know we could be such great friends even after fifteen years.
The flight to Seattle was two hours, but we lost an hour so we actually landed at seven in the morning. The catch was that we didn't fly out until 22.30 that night. Breakfast with Horizon Air was pretty ordinary, but we made up for it at the Mexican Take Away at SeaTac. Once again it was brilliant. After breakfast we went to the Continental desk to let them know that Horizon Air had forwarded our bags on. The two ladies were sympathetic to how tired we must have looked, and gave us some passes to stay in hotels as a 'Distressed Passenger', which is a much cheaper rate than normal. Unfortunately we just missed another flight to New York, but that might not have been a bad thing.
We decided to book a room at The Holiday Inn which wasn't far from the airport. We rang a shuttle bus and before long we were at reception. They were very sympathetic and helpful also. Before long we were fast asleep. I felt bad that we weren't going to see Seattle, but we both agreed that we needed to have a quiet day.
Waking up around lunchtime we went downstairs with the intention of finding a chemist as Beck has a sore throat and has been coughing. Geronimo who drives the shuttle bus for the hotel offered to take Beck which was really nice of him. Geronimo is from Portugal, and it was cool talking to him. His English isn't very good, but he is very friendly. We tipped him as thanks, and told him we'd see him when we got a lift to the airport. For the rest of the afternoon we just watched TV and slept. We were looking forward to dinner at the same Mexican at SeaTac.
Geronimo was rapt that we remembered his name, and told us we had left him with a good impression of Australians when he dropped us off at the airport. Our Mexican dinner was as expected - excellent.
Continental didn't have the greatest reputation from people we had spoken to, and they lived up to it. Having to buy drinks and headphones (granted it was a domestic flight) was a start, although missing the in-flight movie of 'Zorro' was no great loss. There didn't seem to be as much room in the seats, and the flight attendants didn't do more than they had to. I took some of Beck's cough medicine and got a little bit of sleep. Beck got some sleep also, but found it hard having someone else sitting next to her. It seemed like forever that there were lights out the window during the flight, and shows just how populated north-eastern America is.

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