Tara's brother-in-law picked me up to take me to the airport. (9:30am) I didn't know he was such a crazy driver. He made me a little nervous. He drives to fast and spends too much time looking at the cars around him, trying to figure out what they were doing. It was very nice of him to give me a ride...
The first leg of the flight was fairly uneventful. I wondered if we would be able to see the shuttle go up when it launched, but they didn't launch, so the question remains unanswered.
In Atlanta, I had about a 2 hour layover. In the centerpoint of Terminal A, they have a Chili's. I went there. I didn't have to wait for a seat, and pulled out this week's Sport's Illustrated. The waitress came fairly soon, asking for my drink order. I choose water, she didn't seem terribly disappointed. The water eventually showed up, she asked for my order. I ordered chips and salsa (of course), and the Turkey sandwich combo. (With tortilla soup.) About 15 minutes later, the chips and salsa showed up. I was reading my magazine, so I didn't get too ticked off. The waitress came back offering to get me a new water, she really didn't do it. Then, 25 minutes after the chips and salsa appeared, she asked me if there was anything else she could get me. Of course, my answer was "My sandwich, for starters." She looked suprised, rememebered what I ordered, and told me she would bew right back. The soup and sandwich came not too long later. (I figure she forgot to place the order for me.) She brought water with the soup. Then it took her 10 minutes to come back to offer the check, 5 more minutes to come back for it, and a few more minutes to process it. I am sad to say it's the first time in a very long time that I did not leave a tip. (Normally even the worst waiter gets some sort of tip. I was kind of ticked by then.) All in all, I spent 70 minutes in the restaurant. (It was kind of slow the last time I was there, but in the "this restaurant is kind of busy, that's why it's slow" type of thing.
I went to the gate, about 10 minutes later, they changed the time of the departure by 43 minutes. They said the plane was late, but had left the other airport, and they would wait for this plane. The plane was to take off at 8:53pm at that point instead of 8:10pm. At 8:45, they told us that a plane had landed, they moved the gate from C36 to D36. On my walk from C36 to D36, I saw numerous fast food places that likely would have been better than the one I was at, including another Chili's in the D concourse. We all got to D36, in 10 minutes the departure time went from 9:05 to 9:10 to 9:25. Eventually we were let on the plane, (which was a plane that came in from Rochester, not the one from St. Louis they kept talking about.) and everyone sat down. Or at least most people sat down. The Flight Attendant kept trying to get people to sit so that we could leave. I was in seat 4D. When they counted heads, they counted 1 extra person. It took them about 20 minutes to figure out that the extra person was a 11 month old baby (infant in arms). We got in really late, barely beating the the next ATL to BUF flight.
Tara came to get me, and got plenty of book reading time.
All in all, it was a long day. Just not what I was expecting.
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