Headed back to the states...more mishaps and lots of running

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Our flight left at 9 am and I had always heard that you were supposed to be at the airport 3 hours ahead of time. Since we had rented an apartment through Avenue Story we were able to reserve a cab through their concierge service. The exact email I sent to the two days earlier to the company was:

We would like to schedule a airport transfer.
We would like to have a car pick us up at 6am Thursday, August 6th.
There are 8 people in our party. We all have a large suitcase and a carry on. We also have two sets of golf clubs.



I also listed the address in the email so that it was clear which apartment we were staying at. Pretty clear, right? I did not have cell phone service in Paris so all the communication to the company was via email when we had access to Wifi. The company emailed back a couple of hours later that the car would be there to pick us up at 6 am. Jeff did not get a warm and fuzzy feeling from the emailed response so he asked me to email them back and confirm that there would be two cars to pick us up. so I wrote back the following:

Will all 8 of us with our luggage and 2 sets of golf clubs fit in the car or will there be two cars.

Thank you for your prompt response.
Olivia

I never received a response but I felt that I had made myself clear on how many people they were picking up and the amount of luggage that we had.

We all wake up around 5 am and Jeff and Alton start to take the bags down the stairs. I was a little slow going from the wine I had drank the night before but I reluctantly got out of bed and jumped into the shower.

Jeff looked out the window and saw one minivan pull up in front of the apartment and he started panicking. He rushed down and spoke to the driver and the driver said that this was the only car that was ordered. Jeff tried to get the guy to get another van to come to pick the other half of the party up but they just kept telling him that it's just too busy and they were not ale to get another car for us. Jeff decided to take matters into his own hands.

Jeff starts walking down the street and he is just praying that he could find another taxi cab that could hold 4 people and luggage. Well, wouldn't you know it, a cab turned down our street without his light on. Jeff jumps in the middle of the road and flags the guy down. The guy pulls over and Jeff gets the other cab driver guy to tell him what airport to take us to.

Jeff then runs upstairs and tells me to come on because the meter is running on this cab. I do not know what he is talking about so I look at him like he has lost his mind. He just said come on, lets go.

Before we could leave the apartment a representative from Avenue Story needed to come and check out the apartment. This was one of the procedures that had to be done so that we could get our deposit back. The girl that was inspecting the apartment showed up in the middle of the chaos. She looked way more hungover than I did. She just stood there like she had never seen eight people moving out of an apartment before. I showed her where the keys were and asked her if she needed anything else. She said no and I said ok, bye and we all left the apartment.

Me, mom and the boys were all in one cab and Alton, Jeff and the girls were in the other cab.

When I walked up to the cab I noticed that there was a Visa/MasterCard/AmEx sign on the window. I pointed to it and asked if he took AmEx. He said,'No, it's broken.' I looked at him and said 'that is a lie'. He looked at me, laughed and said 'lie' and just kept saying 'lie'. I am almost certain he understood me and that the thing was not broken. Whatever.

We arrive at the airport safe and sound. We pay them entirely too much money for the cab ride, grab our luggage and make our way to check in our luggage.

This airport is a little different than I am used to (not that I am a frequent flier or anything). When you showed up to the kiosk to check in you have to scan your passport. Once the passport is scanned it prints out your boarding passes and then the luggage tags. I have never had to apply my own luggage tag. I think I understand the instructions so I get to applying.

We get up to the desk to drop our luggage off. The lady takes one look at the luggage tags that were attached and she start taking them all off. Opps, guess I didn't do that correctly.

We go through security and find our gate. Now that we are settled and know where our gate is we start getting hungry. I look for a map of the airport but I can't find one. I finally ask someone if there is somewhere to eat and they point out two places that are in our terminal. Well, these two places are just grab and go little stores. Nothing really looked good at all. Jeff and I decided on some pasta with red sauce. Oh, it's 7am!

After we all each our pasta and salad we head back to our gate. Well, the gate changed. Off we go to find our new gate.

We board the plane and we are on our way. Just kidding. We sit on the tarmac for about an hour.

Well, this stinks because our layover in NYC is only about an hour and a half.

We land at JFK and we are informed that we are to pick up our luggage from baggage claim, go through customs and if we have a connection flight we need to recheck our baggage. How in the hell are we supposed to do this in the now 30 minutes we have to get to our connection flight?!?!

We walk down the never ending hallway to customs. We scan our passports and get through that process pretty quickly and painlessly. We then go grab our bags and follow the signs to recheck our baggage. Holy line!!! We tell the folks that we need to catch a flight in 20 minutes. They let us go through the emergency line and we continue to follow our signs to recheck our bags. We pretty much throw our bags at the Delta guy and head to the security line. Who knows if any of our bags will make it to Jacksonville!

The security line wasn't as long and we kind of zipped right through. Of course Gigi tries to bring a bottle of water and she gets told to throw it out and then she did something that caused her to get an extra security check. Way to go Gigi!

We are now off to find our gate. Alton, Kelsey and Megan were told by someone to take a bus but we were told to go to the left. At this point we do not know where they are and we really didn't have time to think about it. We just hoped we all made the plane.

When we round the corner we see gate number 24. Our gate is gate 45!! Jeff sees a golf cart and flags them down to take Gigi. The lady said that due to construction she is only able to get her to gate 31. She can then get picked up at gate 33. Mom hopes on. Me, Jeff and the boys just start running. We look slap crazy!! As we run Jeff flags another golf cart down to go pick up mom. They take her to the next construction point and then Jeff had another cart waiting for her. I finally see gate 44. I high five the air but then realize we have to go down a flight of stairs. Ugh!

Believe it or not we still had 5 minutes to spare! I do not know how all of this happened in less than 30 minutes!!

Problem! Where are Alton, Kelsey and Megan?!?! I run to the stewardess and tell them that we do not know where the rest of the party is. I start to panic a little now. I walk back to my seat and just sit there. I don't know what to do. After what seems like forever Alton, Megan and Kelsey finally appear. Thank goodness!

We all get settled and the plane takes off.

When we land in Jacksonville we finally have time to turn our phones on and off airplane mode. My phone starts going crazy with emails, text messages and voicemails. I see that there are two emails from Delta. One is to tell me the Glenda Culbreth (Gigi) has missed her flight. The next one is to tell me that Timmy's bag did not make it to Jacksonville yet.

Ok, Gigi is with us so apparently she missed some check point along the way.

As we walk toward the baggage claim I start thinking about Timmy's missing luggage. We knew something wasn't going to make it since there was such a rush when we were connecting flights. The problem is that Tim's luggage is actually the bag we carried on. Which bag of ours is the 'missing luggage'? I don't know what tags were put on which bags when we first started in Paris you know 10 hours and two planes ago! I finally realize that the missing luggage is actually Jeff's golf clubs!!

We get to the baggage claim and we start collecting our luggage. Sure enough, no golf clubs. Oh well, at least they made it to Scotland so the glass is half full 😊

We all hugged and said our goodbyes to Alton, Megan and Kelsey. They needed to get back to Troy because Megan's school started the next day and Kelsey was moving to Birmingham this weekend.

We found out from Delta that the golf clubs will actually be delivered directly to our house tomorrow. Going through that process was painless and actually pretty quick. I won't make you wait for an update, they were delivered the next day.

Dad came to pick us up. He brought us all ice cold cokes. He also brought Charlie along for the ride. She was sooo excited to see Jeff!

So, we are home. Now it's time to sort through all the pictures and get to scrapbooking.

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