Somewhere over the Atlantic

December 26, 2009

So I’m sitting on a Delta flight, heading to Switzerland for the New Year holiday. Cut me a little slack with the writing in this blog. I’m two-ish hours into the flight, as well as two-ish glasses of red wine into the flight. But let’s be real, with the combination of the druthers of traveling and the altitude, I’m feeling pretty damn spectacular right now! I feel like this is probably the best remedy for jetlag. Get slightly pissed at 7pm American time, which will cause me to pass out shortly after 1am Swiss time... Folks, I’m thinking we have a winner.

So what to talk about…? My day started not too early, but still early enough, this morning. I was awakened by a cute Guy, and informed that it was time to get up! Much to my refusal, I climbed out of bed and proceeded to get ready. The gentleman that he is went downstairs and emptied my dishwasher and started to reload it! I honestly don’t think that I thanked him for this because I was so neurotic this morning, but it really meant a lot. And yeah, I definitely hope to keep him around beyond my typical new year’s curse.

Other than my dishwasher being emptied and my trip to the airport, there wasn’t anything too exciting until I reached Atlanta for my five hour layover. (Thank goodness I’m not on “The Amazing Race” because a five hour layover would just be unheard of!) Anyway, for the first flight I had to gate check my carry on backpack. Now, this is not just any carry on backpack… this is a backpack containing not only my lovely mac, BUT Kirsten’s wedding dress. (Yes, her dress fit into a backpack. Yes, it’s that small. And yes, it will have wrinkles.) After gate checking and saying a silent prayer to Jesus to protect that bag and it’s contents (because let’s be honest, if I showed up in Switzerland without that dress, or a damaged version of that dress, I might as well skip town and never be seen again!) I sat patiently awaiting what was going to happen in Atlanta…

Now, apparently the Atlanta airport is simply trying to keep up with the Jones’ … even though the “old fashion ways” seemed to work just fine. Instead of being handed your gate checked baggage when you exit the plane, they send it to a fancy baggage elevator at the end of the… man, what’s that tunnel from the airport to the plane called? Crap, it totally escapes me right now… but yeah, that tunnel… there is an elevator, specifically for gate checked bags! Yeah, ponder that for a minute.

We were all patiently waiting for our carry-ons when all you could hear were people saying things like “how silly is this?!” or “if they don’t hurry up I’m going to miss my connection!” The tiny, Asian Delta lady finally appeared, wearing her blue and white, obvious airline lady garment, and attempted (keyword: attempted) to punch in her pass code to get the elevator to open. It wasn’t working. And then we had the stereotypical manly men trying to show her how to work it. (Cue the Rocky theme song.) Keep in mind, they were just passengers, who as of 5 minutes prior were all commenting on how they had never seen such a thing! You could tell the poor girl, probably mid thirties or so, was having a horrible day to begin with, and had no clue what to do with all these angry travelers who so desperately wanted their baggage back!

Me, of all people, should have been freaking out. The contents of my 2-10 backpack totaled well over $2500. If anyone should have been pounding on the door and pretending she was Jack Bauer trying to save us from terrorists, while trying her luck on the pass code that she probably needed a thumbprint for, it should’ve been me! How dare these people feel like they had the right to cause a mini-riot and make this woman feel completely insignificant! Long, long, long story short, a larger gentleman who spoke a little English and mostly Hebrew (according to his wife who told me many times that they were about to miss their flight to Colorado, where it was only five degrees this morning) went up and proceeded to bang and pull on the garage-like elevator door like he was going to free prisoners of war in addition to our luggage. All of our luggage was spared with only one casualty...

From my angle all I could see was a black, duffel looking backpack was wedged between the lift and our floor. Goodness, cue the prayers. My thoughts included a few obscenities and many prayers… “Oh shit! It can’t be my bag with the wedding dress! I knew I should have gate checked it! I knew I should have gotten a fake ring and been a bridezilla and forced them to let me take this bag on the plane with me! Dear God, please not my bag! Not the wedding dress!” As I slowly approached the mob, I see my 2-10 logo smiling back at me on the top shelf of the elevator. With a sigh of relief I quickly grabbed the bag and meandered my way up the… (crap! What the name of that tunnel?!) wondering which poor person walking past me was going to miss their next flight because their bag appeared to have taken one for the team.

And that folks, were most interesting parts of my day. There was very little “people watching” done in this airporting adventure. I was shunned to Concourse E in Atlanta at 12 noon. Do you know how few flights leave from the international concourse in the afternoon? You have to wait to at least 3:30 or 4:00 to see sign of life beyond your own and the lady, bored out of her mind, selling magazines. (I went an bought one because I felt bad for her, and maybe because I was in need of human interaction…)

It’s 7:56 American time… time for me to close my eyes along with my laptop and call it a night. I’m only going to be in Switzerland for a week… there’s no time for jetlag.

Signing off as I fly across the Atlantic,
Suz

Yeah... scratch that...

Well, I'm in Switzerland, and I'm tired, but I still have a delightful case of jetlag so of course I am awake at one o'clock in the morning, wishing upon a star that I was asleep.

Anyway, scratch that last post that I wrote a few months ago. To give myself a little bit of credit I have done a great job at almost everything BUT blogging. To subtract from that credit, I caved and joined Match.com, again. Although, credit should be given where it is due... I am dating someone that I met from the site! Hooray! Let's just hope he puts up with me being gone for most of January... Anyway, back to my whole self absorbed blog and the credit I keep giving to myself. I have been crafting (quite a bit actually), I haven't been wearing my nightguard (due to some crazy dental issues that involved a front tooth replacement with a chicklet), and I have traveled more, which brings me to my current situation... laying on an air mattress in a tiny, dark room in Switzerland.

I finally have some internet connection that I am stealing from somewhere in the world, so I am going to go ahead and post some of my journal entries from the past few days, so just in case you at home, my fellow Americans and loving friends and family, if you are totally bored, I have your solution! You can keep up with me and all my globetrotting.

The next few blog posts are my souvenir of Switerland. (disregard the blog given dates)

Friday Night.

I have something very serious to discuss with my thousands of followers tonight. Today was a huge day in my life, and when I say huge, I mean monumental. Today was the day that I realized that I am the only single (meaning alone, not married, without significant other) person in my circles of friends within a two hour radius. What's a girl to do? I was discussing this with one of my married girlfriends at which point she begins to ponder... "I don't have any single friends (other than you of course) either!!" What's come of this world? How is it even possible for there not to be one single single within my group of friends in the 757?!

What does this mean to you? Well, absolutely nothing, because more than likely you have a partner in crime with whom you spend your evenings with. For me though, it means I have a lot of free time (when I'm not working one of my several jobs I suppose). With all this free time I have decided that in order to avoid Match.com for the third, or is it the fourth attempt... sad... anyway, I must find little things to keep me busy and positive! Here's my list:

1. I have decided I need to be better at blogging. Now, I know that there is no one reading this. No one at all. Raise your hand if you have fallen upon my blog and you consider yourself a "follower"... [...crickets...] ...despite your silence, I'm going to write anyway. And I'm going to try to be better at it.

2. I will do at least one craft a week! And I will blog about it! I'm not trying to rip off that Julie & Julia cooking movie... Let's just see how long I will stick to it.

3. I will wear my nightguard... Silly I know... not something you expect to see on this list, but this bite guard isn't the most attractive accessory, so I might as well take advantage of the fact that there are no boys sleeping over and I don't have to look... well, let's just say I don't have to look my finest.

4. I will go to the movies alone one night. This is actually something that is on my list of things to do before I'm 30, but I figure it is something that I should do while I'm single, so it should be on this list too! I might as well embrace it! Not sure if I can handle it on a Friday or Saturday night right off the bat though.

5. Travel. Well as much as I can. My job(s) keep me in town more and more these days. But I'm going to try to squeeze in as many weekend trips as possible!

6. Spend Friday night's not feeling guilty about staying home, crafting, and watching tv shows like "Say Yes to the Dress" or "Masters of the Reception" :-) Love it!

My newest obsession...

So we all know that I will find a random thing, obsess over it for a while, and then move on. Well folks, today is the day for yet another "Suz Obsession."

Last week, well, maybe it was two weeks ago... yeah, it was definitely two weeks ago. I was invited to a friend's apartment in Hampton overlooking what I believe to be the Chesapeake Bay, for some chicken salad. She has the cutest apartment ever, but my chicken salad scores a few more stars than hers. Anyway, my newest obsession is not about her apartment or her chicken salad, it is about the beverage she served.

To wet my whistle she served me a purple Vitamin Water. I was slightly resistant, because A. I'm not typically a fan of purple beverages, and B. Let's be real, I'm not one to venture too far from the beaten path when it comes to eating and drinking. I like to stick to what I know and love, although it seems that whenever I live on the edge and try something new it is rare to find myself unsatisfied... (note to self.)

So flash forward a couple days from the introduction of the purple Vitamin Water and my life. I'm walking through Farm Fresh and notice Vitamin Water is on sale! $1 a beverage! Only problem... I don't know what flavor water I was served! What's a girl to do other than buy all of the purple and pink Vitamin Water's on the shelf! You know I cannot turn down a sale!

I walk into my house with about seven different flavored Vitamin Waters, even including flavor names that I assumed I would not like (Raspberry for example - bleh!), but I could not take the risk of missing out on my newest beloved. It was like wine tasting, minus the crackers and the alcohol and the feeling you are left with after sampling the reds and whites and everything in between. After a few days I had tasted and sampled and fallen in love with six out of the seven flavored waters! Now I am not here to argue for or against the nutritional value of this purple beverage, but lo and behold, my love is not necessarily with the beverage itself, but it's with the labels....

Take for example the Focus Vitamin Water:

"focus
kiwi-strawberry (a+lutein)

not a lot of singers can rock. even fewer can roll. and once you throw pop in the mix, you can forget about it. but the multi-platinum kelly clarkson pulls off all three like a diner does breakfast, lunch and dinner. most vocalists couldn't even lip-sync to a set like hers. so, how does she do it? behind her hazel eyes is some serious focus. she's living proof that with a little concentration you can do anything... catch a fly with chopsticks, solve a sudoku puzzle, or climb the corporate ladder. just stay off the top of the charts - thats kelly's territory."


I mean, how great a read is that?! Especially considering the fact that it's coming from a beverage bottle?! Let's just hope its not only the fact that I'm actually enjoying these purple beverages that keeps me surprised and entertained! Keep it up Vitamin Water, keep it up.

He's Just Not That Into You

"Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is... just... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope."

Viva la Vida!

Guess who got two tickets to see Coldplay today?! May 20... Between Leslie and I we probably have an extra ticket, so let me know if you are looking for one!

Never be the first...

Suz: Yeah, they BOTH rode my bike when I wasn't even there!
Leslie: they did???
Suz: YES! Wouldn't you have been mad too?
Leslie: especially since you haven't like been out on it much
Suz: I know!!
Leslie: That's like driving someones car before they do!
Suz: I KNOW
Leslie: or being the first to use the butter tub
Suz: hahahahahahahaha
Leslie: Seriously, they should know better. Not cool.



Never be the first to use someone else's butter tub.