Okay, we were ready. Or thought we were.
Our suitcases were packed.
The dog was at the kennel. We got up at 7:30 on Saturday, Oct 16, to make sure
we got to the airport for a 2:56 pm departure for Miami. We left the house
about 10:30, got the car parked, and got on the shuttle. It was about noon.
There was, of course, a line at the airline counter, but otherwise, things were
going as expected.
Until we got to the ticket
booth. I handed her our passports, our vaccination cards and our print-out
regarding our flights. Then; “Have you got your health form for the Spanish
government?”
My jaw dropped. “I
know nothing about such a form. I was never told I needed any kind of form for
Spain.”
Well, such a form was
necessary. Such a form was mandatory.
The clerk wrote down the website on my flight information and asked me to step
aside and go to that website on my phone and fill out the forms, and come back
when I had the QR codes we would receive by email.
My phone! Use the
internet? Check my email? I don’t use the internet on my phone; I use it for
phone calls. And text messaging.
No choice. So for an
hour, I stood in the middle of a busy airline ticket center, trying to fill out
a form to get permission to land in Spain. First, I filled it out for a family,
thinking that would be simpler (I was wrong). I filled it in for John, then
went on to give it my information, skipped through the sections for 5 children,
and… it wouldn’t let me go on until I filled in those sections! So I went back
to fill out individual forms. Fill in the information for John, and… It told me
a form for him already existed, and I should click on ‘Continue with Forms’, a
button that I could not find. Tears streamed down my face as I started tearing
out my hair.
Okay, not quite that
bad, but I was getting pretty frazzled. It was going on 2. The crowd had dissipated.
Finally, the ticket clerk came over to help and filled out the forms on her
smart phone, then printed them out so I would have them when we got to Spain. She
got us our boarding tickets, took the luggage we were checking in, and sent us
on our way. I never even got her name. She was my hero, that day.
Next, the security
line, which was long. We took out our electronics and put them in a bin.
Emptied our pockets and put our extra glasses in a bin. Took off our shoes to
put in a bin, was told not to use a bin. I had to take off my belly bag, and
couldn’t put it in a bin, either. I told the guard I had artificial knees, and
he waved me over to the big, 360 degree x-ray machine, which I expected. Then I
got patted down. What was the purpose of the x-ray machine? John doesn’t have
any artificial parts, but he got waved over to the x-ray machine, and got
patted down as well. Apparently, what was good for the goose was good for the
gander.
It was approaching 3,
and they were hollering at us to get our stuff and get out of the way. John
told me to grab my stuff, and run for the gate, he’d catch up. The overnight
case fell open, and he had to shove stuff back into it. I shoved the computer
and 2 kindles into my bag (only the computer had come out of it), shoved my
phone in my pocket, grabbed my phone and ran for the tram to the concourse I
needed. It was crowded, and I didn’t get a chance to get my shoes back on. As I
hurried down the long hallway towards Gate 58, I heard them calling our names
to report to the gate, the plane was about to leave. I got there and shoved our
tickets at them, had to remind them to give back the attached tickets to get us
to Barcelona (Spain). Then I turned around to see where John was.
He was coming. He
handed me the glasses I had forgotten to pick up. He didn’t have his shoes.
They couldn’t let us on the plane without shoes. I sat down and put on my shoes,
but all his other pairs of shoes were in his checked luggage, not his carry-on.
We had a plane to catch in Miami in order to get to Barcelona. What were we to
do?
A man said he could
give John a pair of sandals, size 12. John told him they would be a little
small, but he’d take them. After looking through all his family’s carry-on
pieces, the man didn’t have his size 12 sandals and apologized. At that time, a
younger man approached with a pair of flip flops, which he offered John, who
accepted gratefully, and we got on the plane. I have the impression we were not
the last ones to get on that plane, but I can’t swear to that.
We found our seats,
sat down, buckled up, sighed in relief and hoped the worst was behind us. John
had lost his shoes to the conveyor belt at security. We could hope to reclaim
them when we returned to Orlando. At some point, John realized I wasn’t wearing
my belly bag. Another item lost to the security check point. Another thing to
hope to reclaim when we returned to Orlando.
The items in my belly
bag included my flash drive and my driver’s license. Luckily, our passports
were in my carry-on bag, so I still had a form of ID.
We arrived at Miami
without further incident. While John made use of the rest room across the hall
from our arrival gate (D20), I discovered that we had 2 hours to reach our
departure gate, D4.
We had had an early
breakfast, but no chance to grab anything to eat or drink in the Orlando
airport, and nothing had been served us during the ½ hour flight to Miami. We
had 2 hours. Surely we could find something to eat in the Miami airport,
couldn’t we?
Luck smiled on us.
Directly across from our departure gate was a tiny Cuban restaurant, so we got
something to eat. We had no clue if anything would be served to us during the 9
hour flight to Barcelona, so we ate while we had the chance, and it was good. I
rather wished I had gotten 2 empanadas. I opted to munch on pretzels I had
packed as a snack. Between the relief of finally being on our way and the
introduction into our systems of much needed food and drink, we were feeling
pretty decent.
John likes an aisle
seat in a plane, but we were assigned seats A and B, which were the window seat
and the middle seat, so he took the window seat. Surprisingly, nobody showed up
to claim the aisle seat, but we were in the air before I realized it was going
to remain empty.
After about an hour
of flying, the flight attendants served drinks. And then supper. I opted for
the vegetarian pasta, John had the chicken and rice. There were a lot of other
things included; a bottle of water, a small salad, 2 large crackers, a wedge of
cheese, a roll and a dessert bar. We ate it thankfully and finished our sodas,
keeping the bottles of water for later.
After dinner, the
cabin lights went off, as it was presumed everybody would sleep through the
flight. There is 6 hours time difference between Florida and Barcelona, and it
is an 8-hour flight. We left between 6 and 7, and would arrive in Spain between
8 and 9 (both local times.) But according to my watch, we would arrive at about
2 am. Anticipating a long, busy day the next day, I tried to sleep. I really
did. John ‘rested’, but probably didn’t get much sleep. It wasn’t until my
watch said it was 12:33 that my body decided, ‘Okay, it’s time to sleep.’
We would arrive in
Barcelona in approximately 2 more hours, but I got a few minutes of sleep.
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