Monday, May 21, 2012

Boarding without Seats

Saturday the 12th.  Whew. Out of Salt Lake City. For a few moments I thought we might not get seats. Luckily, Mark kept calm and we got on. I was not filled with confidence that we were in good hands when the ticket agent said, "You guys can get on the plane." Uh, gee; we'd like to, but we're waiting for you to give us our seat assignments.

Oh well. We'll see if our carry-on luggage, which we checked, gets to Orlando with us.



Later... We landed in Orlando on schedule. This left us about a half hour to rent a vehicle before the rental desk closed.  The first thing we noticed upon exiting the plane and walking down the terminal bridge was the air. It was damp. And humid. It smelled of a harbor and maybe palm trees. (Actually, there's a lot of sulfur in the water, which tastes terrible.)

My ears are still equalizing. The sensation of a worm trying to tunnel out of my ear reminds me of our last visit here, where it took like what seemed like forever for my ears to feel right.

After retrieving our luggage, I waited for Mark to appear with the car. I made the mistake of sitting downwind from a cigarette bin. Ugh. I don't know what they smoke here, but it smells sour and tarry and dirty. As soon as I could, I moved upwind.

There are more languages here than in Oregon.

The arrivals area looks like the inside of a space station. The concrete curders streatch to the right and left , threatening to merge in the perspective of the lace. In front of me, yellow metal girders curve away from the builing a support canval awnings (I think) At first I thought they were sheets metal painted white.

Mark has called and can't find me. So I will stand. (It turned out he was looking for me at the wrong terminal.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It sounds like you had a real time of things. Travel can be really great, and it can bite, but the further it gets into the past, the better it seems to have been. :)