After almost a month of silence, I've returned! I left my laptop charger in the US and had to order a new one which is the reason for the extended delay. I was not about to type out a blog on my phone!
Our trip to the airport was uneventful and used to sleep a little. The only train time that worked out for us would be getting us there a whopping 4 1/2 hours before our plane took off. We got to the airport at 9 am and decided to check-in early so we can get past the gates and relax. We were flying Delta via Air France into Philly. Luckily, we didn't have to walk for long before we found Air France and checked-in via their kiosks. When checking in however, the kiosk gave us separate seats several rows away from one another. We tried to change them, but it wouldn't let us so we asked one of the supervisors in the area who, after taking a look at our boarding passes, told us that if the kiosk wouldn't let us change them, it means there are no remaining consecutive seats available. Now, this is 4 1/2 hours before the flight and as far as I know you can't chose your seat before checking in so I doubt this was true but either way he obviously wasn't willing to help us, so we continued on.
We went through a few more lines, passing several people who all checked our boarding passes and all said they couldn't help us change our seats, and finally arrived at the area to drop off our luggage. She took our boarding passes and our luggage and then said, "Oh, you're flying Delta, you're in the wrong area. You have to go down to [gate all the way down the hall]." She assured us it was fine that we had used Air France kiosks and had already given her our luggage which makes me wonder why the heck we have to walk all the way to Delta now, but whatever. We get to Delta, they check us in, we ask for our seats to be changed, they say no, life goes on.
We kill some time at the international cafeteria and then head to the boarding halls to look at things we will never be able to afford in our lifetimes. We play the "How much do you think this costs?" game where we guess ridiculously high prices and are still usually far below par. My personal favorites were a floral patterned cotton scarf for $75 and a very simple, bland looking (albeit gold) watch for $25,000.
We settle down in our boarding area and wait for the plane to start boarding. The overhead PA system was barely audible, I could only catch a word or so per sentence, but luckily the people checking people through called out loud and I could hear them. We take our last shot at asking to get our seats changed and the woman goes "Oh yeah, no problem!", types on her keyboard for a few seconds, calls over to her colleague to ask if seat 25F is free, gets confirmation, and that's that. It took maybe 20 seconds.
The line was going very slowly; there seemed to be a secondary security check that we got waved through. We headed past everyone and walked through that extendable portable hallway thing that connects the building to the plane only to find no plane. There was no one in site but there were some spiral staircases a little further down and to the right leading to the tarmac. We looked at each other and figured why not. Half way down we ran into about 15 other confused people waiting on the stairs. After confirming they were boarding the same flight as us, we joined them in waiting. It then dawned on me the few words I could pick up over the horrible PA system were "stairs" and "sorry for the inconvenience" and must have been telling us
Our trip to the airport was uneventful and used to sleep a little. The only train time that worked out for us would be getting us there a whopping 4 1/2 hours before our plane took off. We got to the airport at 9 am and decided to check-in early so we can get past the gates and relax. We were flying Delta via Air France into Philly. Luckily, we didn't have to walk for long before we found Air France and checked-in via their kiosks. When checking in however, the kiosk gave us separate seats several rows away from one another. We tried to change them, but it wouldn't let us so we asked one of the supervisors in the area who, after taking a look at our boarding passes, told us that if the kiosk wouldn't let us change them, it means there are no remaining consecutive seats available. Now, this is 4 1/2 hours before the flight and as far as I know you can't chose your seat before checking in so I doubt this was true but either way he obviously wasn't willing to help us, so we continued on.
We went through a few more lines, passing several people who all checked our boarding passes and all said they couldn't help us change our seats, and finally arrived at the area to drop off our luggage. She took our boarding passes and our luggage and then said, "Oh, you're flying Delta, you're in the wrong area. You have to go down to [gate all the way down the hall]." She assured us it was fine that we had used Air France kiosks and had already given her our luggage which makes me wonder why the heck we have to walk all the way to Delta now, but whatever. We get to Delta, they check us in, we ask for our seats to be changed, they say no, life goes on.
We kill some time at the international cafeteria and then head to the boarding halls to look at things we will never be able to afford in our lifetimes. We play the "How much do you think this costs?" game where we guess ridiculously high prices and are still usually far below par. My personal favorites were a floral patterned cotton scarf for $75 and a very simple, bland looking (albeit gold) watch for $25,000.
We settle down in our boarding area and wait for the plane to start boarding. The overhead PA system was barely audible, I could only catch a word or so per sentence, but luckily the people checking people through called out loud and I could hear them. We take our last shot at asking to get our seats changed and the woman goes "Oh yeah, no problem!", types on her keyboard for a few seconds, calls over to her colleague to ask if seat 25F is free, gets confirmation, and that's that. It took maybe 20 seconds.
The line was going very slowly; there seemed to be a secondary security check that we got waved through. We headed past everyone and walked through that extendable portable hallway thing that connects the building to the plane only to find no plane. There was no one in site but there were some spiral staircases a little further down and to the right leading to the tarmac. We looked at each other and figured why not. Half way down we ran into about 15 other confused people waiting on the stairs. After confirming they were boarding the same flight as us, we joined them in waiting. It then dawned on me the few words I could pick up over the horrible PA system were "stairs" and "sorry for the inconvenience" and must have been telling us