Last we left off, a massive storm had delayed our flight out of Charlotte so much that we would have missed our connecting flight in Boston, so we were rebooked for two days later. Jet blue (who was contracted out by Emirates for that first leg) originally rebooked us on the suckiest fights known to man with a ten hour layover in Laguardia... big, fat nope. I called Amex and sent an ungodly amount of time on the phone with a super nice agent who agreed that that long of a layover and really awful flight times with a seven year old wasn't going to work. So, after a lot of work and time, we were rebooked on the same flight I had originally booked just two days later. Cool. No biggie.
We hop in the car and make it to Charlotte... no delays and clear skies. Good. Great.
I send a snapshot to Christopher with the caption, "your space unicorn is so excited to see you TOMORROW!" I have yet to realize this grave error in assumption...
I snap another shot... look at those happy, excited faces. Oh how naive they are to think that nothing will happen with this rebooking...
We land in Boston to a beautiful sunset. Seriously, is there ever a better time to land in the middle of a city?
We land. We taxi off the runway and to our gate. The cabin crew tell us that its safe to turn our cellular devices back on and off of airplane mode. I do so, eager to let everyone know we made it and are on our way to the next flight.... but, wait. Whats that? A text message from the airlines?
Surely that can't be right... surely our flight isn't being rebooked and delayed another day?! Oh, but it is, my friends. It most certainly is.
Stella and I get off the plane in a rush... at this point I'm just sort of panicky and hoping that it was a mistake and that if it wasn't a mistake that maybe we could get on a different flight. I knew that there was a 10:30 flight to London that we could catch a connecting flight to Bahrain from. So I rushed. Like an idiot. Because when you rush, shit happens. We get off the plane and are in the little hallway that connects the plane to the airport and this family will NOT get out of the way. I say "excuse me" and still... nothing. So I move to go around them, my foot slips off and I fall...and I mean fall... I crash straight down, face first on the non-skid. I jump up, scraped knuckles and severely bruised ego and the guy behind me says, "whoa, nice save! I would have been down a lot longer than that!" Thanks guy, that really helps.
We get to the Emirates counter and wait in line... for ages. No one knows anything, we're all just waiting. I finally get to the ticketing agent and they hand me a hotel voucher and a shallow apology. I told them I booked through Amex and I was going to call them and see if they could book me on something else. I give them our baggage tag information and tell them that if we're going to end up staying in Boston, I need to get some things out of my bags.
I call Amex. The agent I talked to the first time everything happened in North Carolina was insanely helpful. I mean, I was on the phone for over two hours, but she was incredible- she was patient and nice and she got a supervisor involved right off the bat to make sure I ended up on a decent flight. This agent sucked. She wasn't helpful and basically told me her hands were tied unless I wanted to purchase another flight out of pocket. Nope. Definitely not. So, morale incredible low, tummies rumbling (because, at this point, its almost 10:00pm and neither of us has had dinner yet), I go back to the counter to let them know and to see about our bags.
Now, I totally understand that the ticketing agents were living their version of hell that night. I tried my hardest to be polite and understanding, but I was tired, frustrated and hangry and I had a seven year old who was the same so when the agent tells me they still can't find our bags, I very politely tell her that I'm not waiting another "possible few hours" for them and we'll make do.
So, off Stella and I go to find our way to the hotel they've booked us into. I get downstairs to the information desk and no one is there... I wait... theres a sign that says they'll be back at 10:00. I wait til a few minutes after that, give up and call the hotel. They don't have a shuttle and she tells me to get an uber or a cab. I don't have uber downloaded on my phone so off to the cab stand we go.
The cabbie takes one look at the voucher they've given me and says, "Ma'am, theres more than one holiday inn express. Do you know which one it is?" I burst into tears at that point, grab Stellas hand and back up to the ticketing agents we go.
We get back upstairs to the ticketing counter and I see a baggage handler wheeling a large stack of luggage around and lo and behold, there's our bags! I flag him down, get the bags and get what I need out of them. I stand in line... again... and get to the counter. I find out which Holiday Inn Express it was and then I tell the guy that I randomly came across my bags and can I just leave them with them now since I got our clothes and toiletries out. He says sure and goes to get them and realizes one is overweight. He tells me I'm going to have to pay the overweight fee again and I just looked at him. At this point, its almost 11:00pm, I'm beyond stressed out, tired, and still... Stella and I have yet to eat dinner. She's crying and stressed out, I'm pissed. So I look at the guy and all semblance of nice, understanding, has-worked-in-customer-service-and-hospitality-Jessica goes out the window. Luckily, a manager overhears my tirade, looks at the idiot ticketing agent and says, "Ma'am, you don't have to pay it again, its our mistake, no worries." and takes my bags. Phew.
I call the correct hotel, find out they do have a shuttle and its on its way. Cool. We go wait where we're supposed to and the shuttle comes after a couple of minutes. The second he puts it into park, he's rushed by everyone waiting and guess what? Asshole family that wouldn't get out of the way during the de-planing shoves me out of the way, smacking Stella's head with one of their backpacks and muscles their way onto the shuttle ahead of us. It fills up and we're left standing there... no ride. The shuttle driver says he'll be back but it might be over an hour.
I'm done at this point. And I mean done. I'm angry and pissed and hungry and frustrated. I tried calling hotels that were walking distance but everyone was booked. There was nothing in Boston near the airport. Awesome.
A small group of people was standing there waiting also and I told Stella, "Babe, we're getting a taxi, lets go!" and they overheard me and said, "we're coming too." So we all went to the taxi stand and took a van together to the hotel. We checked in and dropped our stuff off in our room and, luckily, there was a target right beside the hotel and it was open another half hour. We rushed over there, grabbed some heavier snack stuff for dinner and had a picnic on our bed before falling asleep.
We woke up the next morning to a text message that our flight had been delayed and our new departure time was 03:45 that next morning. Fun. Our check out time was noon... what on earth was I supposed to do til then? I contacted Emirates and they put a request through for a late checkout, which, thankfully, came through. We had some breakfast, grabbed some coffee and hot chocolate from the Starbucks next door and decided to try and make the most of our unexpected day in Boston!
I downloaded Uber and scheduled a ride to the childrens museum and off we went!
Pretty much sums up how we were feeling...
But then we got here... it was a beautiful day and awesome spot of the city!
We walked into the museum and Stella beelined for the bubble room
But her favorite thing was this magnetic wall with PVC pipes hooked to magnets... you could create runs to drop a golf ball in. She engineered that whole wall and it worked! She was quite proud of herself!
She played and learned about kinetic energy...
Found the dinosaur room- which she was thrilled about!
And then we went back to the bubbles after she's seen all the rooms...
The entrance of the museum has this really cool climbing, maze structure. She made it to the top!
After the kids museum we needed a little sustenance so we headed over to the little tea shop attached to the Boston tea Party museum! We got to taste all the types of tea that those ungrateful colonials threw into the water! Some of it was delicious... some was not! But it was really neat!
Drinking tea on the harbor...not pouring it out!
We headed back to our hotel (another Uber ride and my anxious little worst case scenario heart was very happy to arrive unmolested and not murdered...lol). We walked around to the little shopping center next to the hotel and had some dinner and then went back to rest until we had to be at the airport. Overall, our impression of Boston was pretty good and I think we did an okay job of making the most out of a not great situation, but we were also happy to be leaving and headed back to our lives and our waiting husband/daddy!
We get to the airport at 10:45 to a line of people and.... no ticketing agents.
So, out came the tablet and we waited. And waited. And waited.
Finally around 12:30 they came and checked us in. And we went back to wait to board... and this happened, naturally.
I managed to get both of our carry on bags, and a sleeping Stella through the check in and almost to the plane before she woke up. I made her walk the rest of the way, but as soon as she laid down, she was out! She slept for a few hours but then was up for the rest of the trip.... which means, so was mama. Needless to say, when we arrived in Dubai for our connection to Bahrain, exhausted doesn't even begin to cover what I was feeling.
We arrived in Bahrain around 02:15 in the morning. We waited for our luggage and.... kept on waiting. It had never made it onto the airplane in Boston- even after I asked and had them check with our luggage tag numbers. So, we filed a claim for them to track it down and went out to find a very anxious Christopher who had been waiting for us for over an hour, worried that something had happened with our visas or something!
We headed home and finally got into bed around 5 am.
Jet lag has been torturous this time around. Stella and I both have really struggled to get back on Bahrain time which looks a lot like this at random times during the day....
We have spent the week catching up on all our favorite things... like sexy juice from the shawarma guys!
Emmawash for Bahraini breakfast with some of our favorite people!
We even tried something new... this is Balaleet. Its a traditional breakfast item and I've never had the courage to order it. Its sweet noodles with an egg on top. Its... odd. I didn't hate it, but I definitely didn't love it either!
And being back in the land of sand in the dead heat of summer means we're seeing temps like this before noon...
And on Friday we lucked out and got to see the blood moon completely!
It was a relatively clear night, save some dust, so we got a great view!
This weekend we headed to one of our favorite places, Lumee for some lunch! We had zata'ar hummus (divine), cauliflower salad with pomegranates and tarragon, and a duck shawarma- which was like if Peking duck and shawarma had a baby... it was amazing!
Then we found a nitro ice cream place at the mall and had to get some! The taste was just okay... the novelty of it being made was the best part!
Overall, we're getting back into the swing of things. Still pretty jet lagged, but we're making it work. Most of our friends are gone... they were smarter than us and traveled out of the country during the hottest part of the year instead of returning during the hottest part of the year. But, we still have a couple of our people here so we're spending lots of time with them where we can and trying to find ways to beat the heat! Its funny, you don't realize how much stuff you do outside in normal temperatures until you're somewhere like Bahrain and even simply walking outside is miserable right now. Which translates to lots of staying inside and making trips to the malls to walk and stretch our legs. Not ideal, but we don't really have many other options!
