Warning: May contain large amounts of complaining and detailed travel reports that will bore the minds of today's uninterested. Feel free to skip paragraphs as necessary.
Day One: We're going home! I was so happy to have all the luggage packed so precisily. The Christmas gifts had been mailed. Eric and I had enjoyed a night in Baltimore together, took in the new James Bond movie and we were ready to meet our across the street neighbor Katie and her 5 month old at the USO at the Baltimore Airport before getting on our plane.
With no cellphones and no internet access from my very recently virus posioned computer we were at the mercy of public computers and pay phones for the duration.
We arrived, I marked myself "present" for the flight and found Katie at around 1:00 since we had to leave the hotel. "Show time" was 8:00 and we had 7 hours to kill. We ate some food, read some books, played with baby Abby and were upstairs ready to go with all our enormous luggage train on time. What we didn't know was that "Space A...(Space Available)" was about to become a dreaded enemy. Eric was flying back on "orders" which means he had a guarenteed flight back to Turkey. But Katie and I were flying Space A so the chances of getting back were risky.
The airport rep. announced they had 22 available seats for this flight and we began to count the people waiting for seats. 80 people waiting for 22 seats meant our chances were not great. They began to call the Catergory One people-those traveling because of deaths or emergancies. No one came forward. Then they began to call the Catergory Two travelers. These were the people that were on "leave" or vacation and had a special permission called EML. They began to call last names sorted by the date you signed up. We realized that even when they called one name, that meant that entire family would come forth and 22 seats soon disappeared. They didn't even get through Cat. 2. So I kissed Eric goodbye and Katie and I started the luggage system that would last for the next 5 days of hauling luggage in and out of shuttles/taxis/hotels/airports etc.
We called the hotel and shuttled our way to the first hotel hoping to get on the next flight out the next night.
Day Two: We had to check out of our hotel again at 1:00 so again...all day long in the USO. Eating at more restauraunts. Down to one diaper for Abby. And beginning to push the life panic button which is located close to the tear ducts. We had been informed that if we didn't make the flight out of Baltimore that we could scurry down to D.C. and try and make a flight out of Andrews AFB that night, as they have flights Monday, Wednesday and Friday to Ramstein Germany. We figured at that point we can at least try to get to Germany and then catch another Rotater (Government plane) or just by a ticket to Adana Turkey.
We hauled all our luggage back upstairs at show time and learned there were 54 seats for this plane. They called names and got to Catergory 3 (we were in Cat 4) and stopped half way through Cat Three.
So we hauled all our luggage and Abby's stroller down to the taxis' and flew like mad down to D.C. Taxi fare 109.00. We arrived on base and were told that taxi wasn't allowed on base with all the Inaguration excitement and such so the military police came and escorted us to the terminal where we were greated by an incredibly full room of people waiting for 15 seats on a C-17. 10 minutes before departure time at 10:15 at night a Two Star General comes in and takes all the remaining seats. Great another night in a hotel with the next possible flight going out in two days.
All of the "on base" lodging was full so knowing we would have to call another taxi on base, find a hotel close by, and pay another hotel fee I began my sobbing. A really nice guy sitting next to us offered to take us to a hotel so off to spend more money we did.
Day Three: The next morning we were REALLY out of diapers, wipes, contact solution so we walked through the ghetto that is D. C. to the Family Dollar with barred windows. to get back on track. AND I forgot to mention Eric had my Bank Card so all I had was my check book so Katie had to pay for everything which was very kind but I HATED not having anything. We looked in to the price of flying home 660.00 which is really not bad and decided to wait and see if we could get out on the Friday flight before we went even more crazy.
Day Four: What is that movie where Tom Hanks has to wait for like a year or something before he can fly out of some airport? Is it called the Terminal? That is exactally what we did we ate vending machine food for 3 days, we stayed there for no less than 8 hours and one night 13 hours for days on end.
When we were ready to leave the hotel we called a taxi to get us back on base. Guess what?! The taxi's were on strike and couldn't come pick us up. SO Katie, the baby in the stroller, two huge roller bags and two carry on bags, my lap top briefcase and the diaper bag walked from the hotel all the way on base until we could get picked up by the base shuttle. That's right people 45 minutes and a screaming freezing baby later we got on the shuttle.
At this point I couldn't call or email Eric and let him know where we were or what the plan was because...he's in Turkey...and we didn't have Internet. So at 10:15 when they were supposed to start roll call they announced that the plane had mechanical failure and wouldn't be there until 3:15 am. And they couldn't guarentee anyone would get a seat anyway. This didn't phase us in the least. No surprise would have shocked us at this point. So finally around 1:00 they told us that were were all getting on the plane. I didn't smile, I didn't cry, I just hugged Katie and shrugged my shoulders. Until that plane got off the ground ANYTHING could happen.
Day Five: A C-17 is one of those huge ugly grey planes that usually carries medical supplies, building materials, small cars etc but the sides are lined with seats so this is what we flew for 7.5 hours to Ramstien. I fell asleep for all of 1 hour with my head in my knees. I have nothing more to say about that. It would have been cool if there were any other circumstances surrounding this travel.
Day Six: Arrive at Ramstein at night, check into hotel, sleep in shifts as Abby slept the whole time on the plane and was not interested in sleeping that night at ALL. I did get to watch High School Musical which is the DUMBEST movie of all time from 2:00-4:00 when Abby and I were "playing".
Day 7: Take shuttle 1.5 hours to Frankfurt airport. Purchase ticket to fly to Adana airport. Eat German sandwhich and chocolate chip muffin while we waited 6 hours for our flight to take off. Arrive at home 2:00 am.
Day 8: Eric tells me he's leaving for Iraq in 9 days and asks if I want to accompany him to Ramstein for a week while he waits to go. I am actually not taking any questions right now.
