Natalie's Nook

A/N: I started working on this post two days ago—the 21st—so I’ve been home for two days now.

---

As I start to type this, I’m on my final ride home in an Uber after what felt like the longest vacation voyage I have ever experienced.

The trip was with a friend to Orland Florida, for 4 nights & 5 days— originally. We didn’t arrive in Orlando until almost a day later, after flying standby into Tampa’s airport from Ronald Regan—DC—then driving for about 45 minutes in a rental car to our hotel in Orlando. Shortening our trip down to 3 night & 4 days.

This is how the “vacation” part of our trip went….

1st Day: Golden hour photos. Going between the pool and jacuzzi. Swatting away bugs. What are these bugs? Oh, love bugs. Ew. Pizza for dinner? Pizza. Look Captain America Civil War is on TV!!

2nd Day: We need coffee. Hotel proudly serves Starbucks!! Now, what’s the plan!? Bowling!

Wow I suck at bowling…

Back to the hotel. Pool? Nah. Dinner: salmon, white rice, green beans, and hawaiian rolls. Need sleep.

3rd Day: What’s the plan? Disney Springs!! Ooo Sephora! Disney gift shop with so many souvenirs to choose from. We got 1st Time Visitor buttons!!! Star Wars and Marvel stores RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER!!??? Happy place. Got a BB-8 pin. Awkward pictures because it’s hot. Hungry. Seafood! Rainforest Cafe, haven’t seen one of those in years. THEY HAVE SHOT GLASSES IN THE GIFT STORE! We got matching shot glasses. Walking, walking, walking. Coca-Cola store! I don’t even drink dark sodas. Scared shitless because of the weird looking polar bear you can take photos with, my friend is my witness. A classic Coca-Cola float. Shit, I know I’m going to break out.

That night: A glass of Pink Moscato while watching the series finale of Game of Thrones! Wow, that’s not what we expected at all. Everyone is not so satisfied with it. Yikes. What’s the tea in the MUA industry? YouTube time! Decides to do shots of vodka like we don’t have to be at the airport early in the morning. I’ve never had Corona before, let’s split a bottle! Text messages I kind of regret sending and snap chat videos I don’t quite remember recording. Slept so hard.

After all of that it was time to head back home on day 4.

That morning—around 7:30—we headed to Orlando’s airport with exactly 35 minutes (from 8:20 a.m.) to get through TSA and make it to our gate to check in for us to be ready to board. There were no seats for us to fly standby. The flight was full. We checked for another flight to Ronald Regan airport. FULL. All FULL.

Have I mentioned that this is my first time flying standby? Well this is my first time flying standby.

We needed coffee and something to eat before we checked for anymore flights. Found a flight! A connecting flight. Instead of flying to Regan, we flew from Orlando to Charlotte and then from Charlotte to BWI (Baltimore).

We touched down in Charlotte at around 5:30 p.m, leaving us with 2hrs and 25 minutes to spare for our flight to BWI— or so we thought. As we walked to our gate we saw that the flight was delayed, departure time was then 8:06 p.m. We went looking for food, given the fact that we hadn’t eaten since ten o’clock that morning. I decided on sushi—which was so fresh and amazingly delicious—and she decided on a sub sandwich. It was a dinner date!

We make our way back to the gate with our stomachs full. Sitting and waiting for someone to show up so we can check in. Flight had been delayed again to depart at 8:16 p.m. We’d been in airports for almost over 12hrs at this point.

Finally got our tickets for the flight. We boarded with the overwhelming desire of wanting to get home! Just as we’re preparing for take off, a passenger gets sick and they were sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME!! Plane had to turn back around to the gate to let the passenger off to be tended to by medical help. Did the pilot just say the flight is canceled? CANCELED!!???? Will we ever get home?? Find out on the next episode of I THINK THE FUC— oh never mind, false alarm. The plane will still be flying into BWI, almost 30 minutes later. It was 10:35 p.m. when we were making our way off the plane at BWI.

Five airports for one trip.

We made it to DC at almost 12 a.m. I stayed the night at her place. I needed sleep SLEEP!!

Let’s just say flying free is great, but flying standby is a waiting game I’d hate to play again.

*Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the gif above.