Getting There

Well, my phone goes off at 2:30AM after sleeping for 45 minutes just to catch a quick nap before my flight. I do the typical “5 more minutes” and turn the alarm off, also thinking to myself that my grandmother was downstairs making coffee; she was just downstairs an hour ago asking me for information about China, which might I add I don’t even think it was about China since I had no idea what she was talking about, so it felt like a safe and good call to make…especially when your tired and it means “just a little longer” . I realize now that I honestly think she was sleep walking...

Anyways, my 5 minutes has just turned into half an hour and its 3:00AM and the first thing I realize is “We have to leave in 15 minutes”, I rush upstairs, get everybody up and we move on our merry little way out the door, and so far, it actually seems that I haven’t forgotten anything.

So I’m in the airport waiting for my flight on the international line…my bag is over by 5 pounds so I take a few things out and switch it to the other one and move on my way. My FIRST good deed for the day was waking up some guy who also seemed ilke he was going to China for his lack of English as the flight was loading and he was still sleeping.

I sit in my window seat, and thankfully there is nobody directly next to me, but there is an old woman in the other seat…immediately of course she begins talking to me and being the gentleman that I am, talk back and fulfill her conversational needs. I mean she is sort of doing me a favor as well since I don’t wanna sleep and save it for the flight to beijing. Well, amazingly, she sure slept while she talked to me…I think she was narcapleptic and if not, just really really old. She would fall asleep in the middle of talking to me…she would talk and then just pass out, the first time you should have seen how I looked at her, my exact words “this bitch just fall asleep?”. The amazing part is she would get up and continue conversation from where she left off. By the third time this happen to me I started looking around thinking I was on candid camera…I tried but couldn’t help but start laughing everytime she fell asleep…at least she was sleepin so she didn’t know I was laughing. The by far funniest moment was when it seemed she was trying to make her medication, my guess is so she stops passing out, she would begin opening it and fall asleep. Talk about being between and a rock and a hard spot.

We land in Dallas, everything is good until we actually get on board. There is traffic on the runway so we had to wait 35 minutes before heading out. If you thought that was bad, the hour wait in the air because of visibility just made everything worse. As we finally land I get my first glimpse of Chinese culture. I know it isn’t customary there to wait on lines for buses and paying when shopping, I mean who could blame them with 1.3 billion people. I’d have to shave by the time I finally end up getting out of there. The Chinese woman, as we landed, start plowing through everybody even while they were standing in front of her to get to the front, I couldn’t help but to begin laughing.

So I finally get off the plane and start running to the international terminals, which of course happens to be 50 terminals away from mine. It takes me 10-13 minutes of just running and stopping to catch my breath…finally I get there, I’m saying “where is this freakin gate” I look over the edge of the hallway since it happened to be two floors and as I do I see the digital sign go “CLOSED”, of course I start running like the road runner, get downstairs and say “I need to check in”, the little asian woman turns around, looks at the sign and says “sorry sir, terminal is closed”, I respond “just let me get, I’m lookin at the plane and its just right there, and you just closed it”, her response which made me want to slap her all the way to China “You will have to call AirChina and have them put you onto tomorrows flight to beijing”…as the words tomorrow go through my head I look at her like theres a sign saying “punch me” on her forehead. I ask her politely to give me the number to AirChina which ends up beign useless because the internet in SFO is not free, so I could not even call but I did find a courtesy phone which directed me back to AA.
I head back to AA which sends me downstairs, they book me into a hotel and reschedule my flight for tomorrow and right when its almost all said and done and I’m ready to go the hotel…I realize I left my cell phone and my magicjack in the terminal for AirChina. Now TSA won’t let me in because I don’t have a flight and send me to international which send me back which sends me to AA which finally give me one to walk back to Airchina after 1 hour of walking to see it’s not there. I then begin walking back to AA to hear over the intercom in the Airport “Angel Negron please get to a courtesy telephone”. I felt so cool, like a celebrity I felt the need to say outloud “where is one” which got me a “is that you” and I said “yep” with a million dollar smile on my face. Only for it to get even bigger to see my name written across half the flat monitors to get to a phone. I make the phone call and they say “San Fransisco Police Department is looking for you, please hold on”….the smile disappeared, but it seemed they had my phones.

Well, now walking to terminal 1 which was even further then the international terminals, seeing my name all over the monitors feeling mighty grand, get to a tall asian policeman saying. He has my phone and is in communications with my mother…What I understand is he was going through my phone to see if it had a name to see who it belonged to, he came upon “mom” and called it, my mothers natural response is “awww he had me in their as mom”…as I’m looking at the police officer feeling like a 6 foot tall 5 year old in international troubles with his name written all over the monitors.

Finally, thinking I was all ready to leave this wretched airport, I once again hear my name over the pager to report to the baggage service area. I do this and find out my bags are all okay, they have been sent over for my flight tomorrow to…at this point I actually thought that everything was finally turning around until he ends it with”beijing as your final destination”. My smile quickly turned to a “oh for gods sake man!”….there’s nothing he can do about it which is fine, at this point I don’t care, at least my luggage is getting to China even if I’m going to Hangzhou afterwards.

So I get to the hotel, it’s a gorgeous hotel might I add, 4 star ammenities , ya just had to see it. So thinking that finally I am out of all this mess, I will rest up and start a new wonderful day tomorrow. I get my keys to my room, go upstairs and it wasn’t ready, the sheets and blankets all on the floor and bed and bathroom undone….immediately I realized fate wasn’t giving up yet. I go downstairs, say “this room isn’t ready”, get a new one, which was then switched to a double compared to the beautiful king I just had and….that room isn’t done either. At this point I know the universe is trying really hard. Go back downstiars, request my king back and a room that is actually clean and get it I do. Hook up to the internet, talk to people, let people know I’m okay. My kung fu teacher lives in the bay area so she’s coming over to train tai chi together which means I got time to spare and you know I sure remembered, espeically by my third trip back upstairs in search of a clean room, was that beautiful beautiful looking bar downstairs. I hit it up, have a few grateful deads. Eat a nice meal with some really good drinks and yes, finally, my day has turned around and all thanks to alcohol. And then we wonder how people become alcoholics.

-Angel Negron

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