The Flight of Confusion

As promised, Airplane Blues. Wow, I’m a huge whiner. It’s more that I’m a travel worry-wart. Seriously, ask my mom. When I was little and we used to fly, I used to freak out that we were going to miss our flight, so much so that I got the jitters. Or, when we were driving across country, which we did a lot, I would be the first one up in the morning. If my parents said, we’re leaving by 4:30am, BY GOD and my watch, we were going to be pulling out of the driveway by 4:25am. And I drove my parents nuts. I worry.

Sooooo…I booked our plane tickets in July on Orbitz.com, which I trust. But since then, I’ve gotten 6 e-mails stating that they have changed either the arrival time or the departure time of one of our connection flights. Now, since we live in Nowhereville, USA in the realm of flying anywhere, you have to pond hop to get to your destination meaning we’re going to be visiting 5 airports in one round-trip flight to Amsterdam and back. Not the worst case, but still 5 airports!! I’m freakin’ out man! The sheer numbers of times they have changed our flight times makes me worry because not only are our layovers decreasing in time, but how will then know for sure that we’re on the right plane, etc? This whole thing is reminding me of my jittery days. No to mention the fact that sometimes now they split up the plane with different carriers. So, they’ll have Delta and United on one flight, and whoever doesn’t own the plane, if the plane is too heavy (which happens more than you’d think) THEY’RE bags get thrown off. I can’t even begin to imagine what would happen if I tried to track my bag down in Amsterdam. Crap. What doesn’t worry me? The train ride from Amsterdam to Hamburg. Figure that one out. But I digress…

One thing I did learn while searching the customs sites (to make sure I don’t take contraband into Europe) is that you can’t take counterfeit items into Netherlands. So that fake Louis Vitton bag you have will be confiscated upon arrival. Interesting…