For those who hadn’t gotten word yet, we’ve made it safely to Tripoli. I’m going to take a few moments and tell the story of getting here. We left the house half an hour late, thanks to my being deathly ill the night before, all night long. Zack manned up and cleaned the entire house and took care of the mutts, while I writhed in agony on the couch. I was really, and I mean REALLY, concerned that I would miss the flight because of a stomach ache, but by the time we got to the airport, I seemed to be okay.
Grandpa came to see us before we left, and was viciously attacked by the neighbor’s stupid dog. I chased him away and debated some sort of dog murder, but concluded that may take up too much time. Everything was surreal. I mean, I’ve never even been to Mexico, and here I am, setting sail for north Africa. Luckily for me, the man I love is by my side. It’s great to see him so excited to finally get home, and that really gave me the courage to go through with it.
When we arrived at the airport, check in was a breeze. Shockingly enough, we weren’t selectees. I know, right? I couldn’t believe it. They didn’t even check for my visa, although they wouldn’t have been able to read it, so I guess it’s no big deal. Within ten minutes of arriving at the ticket counter, we were on our way to the gate. And let me just interject here that I am an AWESOME bag packer. Our two big bags were 45 pounds each and of course, the smaller ones were about 30 pounds. So, yeah. Take THAT, Delta! No excess bag charges for this gal! After check-in we headed to the gate. There are only twelve gates at the Shreveport airport, and we were number twelve, which apparently is one of the most hopping gates there. There were really a lot of people flying out that morning, and there was an entire hour where Zack and I held our breath, both of us positive that the most annoying man alive was going to be right behind us on the plane. You know the guy. He’s dressed in an obnoxious pin stripe suit with a shiny solid color tie. Blue tooth stuck obnoxiously in his ear. Hair slicked back obnoxiously. Huge, obnoxious nose. And the most annoying, obnoxious voice you’ve ever heard, which you get to hear a lot of, thanks to that obnoxious blue tooth. Uggh, seriously, it was horrible. He and his “colleague” (of course, that’s his obnoxious terminology there) were going somewhere to do something financial, and apparently, all of gate twelve just had to be informed of this, which would explain why he paced back and forth for an hour, virtually screaming into his blue tooth all about who would buy stocks and bonds and blah de blah de blah. Dude, you’re not that important, I promise. Thank God, the man was on the flight to Memphis. Zack and I actually shared a high-five when he boarded his flight.
About the same time that he got on the plane, an announcement was made, calling Fleming, party of two. Yes, north Louisiana, I got to see your local celebrity, Dr. Fleming. Unfortunately, he and Ms. Cindy were in a huge rush, as they were delaying a flight, after all, so I didn’t get to say hi. Zack remembered him from all of the political fliers, and said, “Isn’t that the guy you would have voted for if you voted?” Yes, sweetheart, it is. Glad you listen to the things I say that aren’t all that important. Next was our flight. I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with the Shreveport Delta crew. The plane came in a few minutes late and they had it turned around and out on time. Not only that, but the flight attendant asked the pilots if she could put my wedding dress in their closet, and they were kind enough to let me. Score one for Delta connection, guys, that was awesome!
It’s been so long since I’ve flown that I was a little shaky when we took off. I just don’t like the time when the plane is at this sharp upward angle, that part kind of bothers me. The good thing? Zack held my hand, even though he laughed at me. Cabin service surprised the heck outta me again, when we got a complimentary snack. I had no idea they still did that. And Rache’….one word--biscoff. Oh, it was delish! This was my first time in the Atlanta airport, and it was pretty nice. There was a smoking area, so we ducked off for a minute. Literally three seconds of standing in that haze will have you dizzy and praying for some clean air. Atlanta was really uneventful, which is always good, but less entertaining in the retelling. The only thing that really happened is, when we began to board for Amsterdam, there was a huge surge of people that cut in line. Zack then tried to cut back in front of all of them, and left me in the middle of a sea of foreigners and four or five Americans, clutching my wedding gown. When I finally made it to the front, the gate agent stopped me, looked at my passport for a full minute, and said “Your surname, it’s not American, it’s Arabic, right?” Why this was so important to the guy, I have no idea. Perhaps Zack’s reputation preceded us. The flight attendants on this flight were marvelous, as well, as they took my dress to the first class closet. As far as I’m concerned, they could have taken us right along with it, and that would have been fine, but no such luck. We took our seats and were lucky enough to be next to each other again, and not in the middle. And actually, no one was in the seat next to me, so that was pretty nice.
International travel is the only way to go, I’ve realized. First of all, there’s this Delta tv in the back of every seat. You can watch movies, listen to music, play games (yep, they have solitaire!) and look at the map of where you are. I chose Toy Story 3 and Grownups. Then we had dinner, which was a pretty decent chicken meal with a glass of wine and some sprite. The wine was Zack’s suggestion, to help us sleep. Well, it worked great for me, but not for him! He watched probably four movies, and I sacked out for almost the rest of the trip. I missed the entire Atlantic Ocean, falling asleep somewhere around Newfoundland…and yes, Mom, we flew directly over Prince Edward Island. I wish we could have stopped there!
Amsterdam airport, while aesthetically pleasing, is not all that impressive. It’s far too spread out, although, on a positive note, everything they say is said in English first, and their accents are very proper. When we got off the plane, the jet bridge was about five miles long, and it was freaking freezing! When we finally made it to the top, we had to go to a transfer center to get our boarding passes because Delta couldn’t issue them. Finding the transfer center was easy enough, it was just miles and miles away from our gate, and had a huge area of people waiting. I still am unsure of their proper procedures; some people seemed to be in line, but some people had numbers, and the people with numbers were called, and the people in line just stayed in line. And some people checked in on the kiosks, and some people (like us) couldn’t. It was strange, but we were some of the lucky ones that got a number and were called up in about five minutes, bypassing about thirty people (haha! Suckers!). Our agent was pleasant and gave us our boarding passes after checking for my visa (it’s about time somebody did that). She actually said, “Well, then, I can’t read that, but it would be nice if I could! Here’s your seats, and congratulations on your marriage!” We were literally congratulated every five minutes on this trip, which was nice considering we literally weren’t congratulated once when we actually got married. We then proceeded to the Amsterdam smoking area. Don’t do it, it was a hundred times worse than the Atlanta airport. This area was actually about the size of a refrigerator, and you were crammed in with about twenty other international smokers. Blech, it was horrible!
We then went on to our gate, which has its own private security area. I didn’t understand this part at all. Why do you have to go back through security?? I mean, we’ve already cleared security. I’m sure it’s more secure and since they have so many people from all over the world transferring, I guess it is a better security measure, but it was still pretty annoying, because when we got to the gate, we had to wait for them to open it. They finally started screening people…and to have additional security in secure areas, their security measures seemed pretty darn lax to me. This was the only plane of the trip that was delayed, and it really was only about half an hour. The reason this is so unfortunate is that it was about -18 degrees in the secure gate area. Miserable. They rechecked my visa here, and again, they couldn’t read it. For all Amsterdam knows, my visa said, “Do not admit this person ever!“ When we finally boarded, these flight attendants were pretty awesome too. The first one took my dress and hung it by itself in a closet, which she then closed off so no one else could put anything in it. Wasn’t that nice of her?
I slept the entire flight from Amsterdam, which was about three and a half hours. Zack said there was a meal, but it wasn’t that good. I wouldn’t know, I was snoozing away! When we landed, I grabbed my dress and hit myself in the face with something. I thought I had broken part of the closet…seriously. Turns out, though, the KLM flight attendants had given me a KLM ceramic house as a wedding gift, which is something they give to first class passengers, I think. There again, I would have preferred the first class seat, but it was very nice of those ladies to do that for me.
When we were about to land, the first thing you noticed was the brown haze. Everything seemed to be the color of the desert, and it appeared to fade up into the atmosphere…the top layer of the atmosphere was beautiful blue, lower was a lighter shade of blue, and creeping up, there was this desert glow. Then, you could see the buildings and plant life. The first recognizable plant was a palm tree, and there’s lots of them here. Getting off the plane, there was no jet bridge, just a set of stairs that we walked down. Then, magically, we were inside the airport. Okay, I will never again say the New Orleans airport looks like crap. Never again. The Tripoli airport is far past its glory days, that’s for sure. Now, to be fair, everyone was very nice. Going through customs was a breeze. Zack told a military guy that I was his wife, and the man took me to the front of a line, where I cut in front of about twenty people (who looked pumped to see me there). The agent stamped my visa, and we were on our way to baggage. That part was not fun, it took an hour for them to offload our bags. Really, the airport here is practically archaic. The best part? Smart carts are free! Zack’s friend met us and brought us to the house.
Desert glow around homes and a mosque
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