Eliot's Travels

Travel Day - Amsterdam

My terrible day began as soon as I went to sleep. I spent the whole night with chills, aches, pain, fever, and the sweats. I was wheezey and at one point couldn't catch my breathe. That's a great way to begin a 18-hour travel day, huh? I finally got up and put on socks to try to fight off the chills and took my advil.

My alarm went off at 4:45 am (not that I was asleep). I called Mary as soon as I got up to see if I could take an inhaler puff to help my wheeziness. She said I could take 2 Aleve every 8 hours (prescription strength). Mary also advised me that if my lips turned blue, I should call the flight attendant because they have oxygen on the plane, if I get short of breath. I sweat that if we were not moving across the Atlantic today, I would not have been near an airplane.

I cleaned the shower and got our snacks together for the plane. I was miserable and had no energy and felt nauseous, so mom carried our 8 bags down to the lobby starting at 6 am. The boys got dressed and we took the rest of our things down. The driver was right on time and we were heading out of Delft by 6:45. We said good-bye to our apartment, Westvest, the new church tower, and the old church. Wow - we were leaving.

We arrived before the United desk crew was even working. The taxi driver helped us in with our bags. We made it! Yes, all the luggage you see is ours: 3 carts worth plus a stroller. The boys played with their cars while we checked in our bags. We headed into the terminal, and mom and the boys ate breakfast. Our plane was going to be 30 minutes late, so we had plenty of time.

We boarded about 11 am. The boys fell asleep as soon as we buckled them into their carseats. We had 2 rows of 3-seaters, so we had an extra seat for me and mom. After taxiing out to the runway, they discovered a problem with a light in the pressurization system. They tried to fix it at the runway, but after an hour we returned to the gate. 1.5 hours later they finally agreed that the light was not a problem and we were cleared for take-off. They did decide to start the movies while we were waiting. Then we had to wait 30 more minutes for air traffic control in Chicago to clear our flight plan. Eliot woke up right before we headed back to the runway and asked "why have we not pushed back?" I told him we had once already! Once we were airborne, we finally got served lunch (3 pm). The flight was pretty uneventful, with the exception of my fever and chills even with 4 blankets on! I just took my Aleve every 8 hours on the dot to survive.

posted by Whitney @ 7:00 PM