After a busy August and September where I saw myself flying 5-6 days in a row routinely, I anxiously awaited the payoff of a long stretch of vacation days beginning toward the end of the month and extending into October. Nicole had also gotten into a film festival in Chicago, so that too became part of our itinerary. Who would have guessed that going from LA to Chicago would prove to be one of the biggest challenges of the trip (at least so far). We tried American and United, which had oversold their main cabins and we finally managed to get on a Spirit flight a few hours later. We arrived in O’Hare a little after 3:00pm, took the EL downtown, and walked the rest of the way to our hotel. We didn’t really have time to do any exploring because we had a red carpet event that evening for the film festival.
We dressed up a little bit (not too much) and found ourselves characteristically overwhelmed by our surroundings. There was a good turnout, and press was there doing interviews. Where these broadcasts actually go is kind of a mystery — it wasn’t exactly the BBC or ABC News, but press nonetheless. Nicole did a few interviews for various sources before we called it and went to get dinner. The following day, Nicole’s movie screened at the theater and seemed to be received well. She did a Q&A afterward and finally was part of a panel where she had some good (and light) one-liners amidst a rather dark discussion about pain and sacrifice. We had little time afterward to gather our bags, ship our “formal” attire back to our apartment, hop on the train to Midway (O’Hare didn’t look promising), and within about two hours from getting out of the theatre, were on a plane going to Detroit. We had enough time to eat at Potbelly’s in Detroit when I saw someone on my StaffTraveler App had responded to my request for load information on KLM from Amsterdam to Cape Town. It said oversold by 2. This wasn’t great news considering we had essentially depended on Amsterdam as our best way of getting to Cape Town. To make things worse, the Delta flight we were going to take from Detroit to Amsterdam had its own case of disappearing seats.
We ended up getting seats on the Delta flight, but they weren’t . . .great. We were both in the back and apart from each other. While we at least weren’t middle seats, it was not the most enjoyable setup. Fortunately, starting in Detroit, the trip across the Atlantic is at least a bit shorter than having gone all the way from Los Angeles. We arrived in Amsterdam around 1030am and were at our hotel just after noon. We took a couple hour nap, slept through three alarms before Nicole woke up and realized neither of us heard the alarm. We forced ourselves up and went for a walk. Our hotel is near the Rijksmuseum, and we walked through the park that lies behind it. It was nice to get out and move the legs a little bit, even though we had to have our wits about us so we didn’t get run over by a bicycle or two or three hundred. We had dinner at a small cafe just across the street from our hotel before calling it a night. It began to rain heavily for the rest of the night.
It was a fitful night of sleep as we suffered from jetlag and the feeling that we had to sleep because we were getting up early again. We had a 10am flight out of Schipol (if we could get seats). The KLM gate agent didn’t seem terribly optimistic about our chances, stating that there were far more standbys than there were seats. Nevertheless, against all odds, we got seats together near the front of the economy section. AND our names were called before more than half of the other standbys. This is unprecedented. We arrogantly marched to get our tickets in front of our fellow nonrev travelers. Twelve hours and a few in-flight meals later, we finally touched down in Cape Town just after 9pm in the same time zone we left from. It was relatively painless to get through customs and we took an Uber the rest of the way to our hotel, about 20 minutes away. We arrived at dark, so we couldn’t see a whole lot, but it was quite windy. We had kept nodding off on the flight, but hopefully we can get a decent night’s rest here in Cape Town.
We dressed up a little bit (not too much) and found ourselves characteristically overwhelmed by our surroundings. There was a good turnout, and press was there doing interviews. Where these broadcasts actually go is kind of a mystery — it wasn’t exactly the BBC or ABC News, but press nonetheless. Nicole did a few interviews for various sources before we called it and went to get dinner. The following day, Nicole’s movie screened at the theater and seemed to be received well. She did a Q&A afterward and finally was part of a panel where she had some good (and light) one-liners amidst a rather dark discussion about pain and sacrifice. We had little time afterward to gather our bags, ship our “formal” attire back to our apartment, hop on the train to Midway (O’Hare didn’t look promising), and within about two hours from getting out of the theatre, were on a plane going to Detroit. We had enough time to eat at Potbelly’s in Detroit when I saw someone on my StaffTraveler App had responded to my request for load information on KLM from Amsterdam to Cape Town. It said oversold by 2. This wasn’t great news considering we had essentially depended on Amsterdam as our best way of getting to Cape Town. To make things worse, the Delta flight we were going to take from Detroit to Amsterdam had its own case of disappearing seats.
We ended up getting seats on the Delta flight, but they weren’t . . .great. We were both in the back and apart from each other. While we at least weren’t middle seats, it was not the most enjoyable setup. Fortunately, starting in Detroit, the trip across the Atlantic is at least a bit shorter than having gone all the way from Los Angeles. We arrived in Amsterdam around 1030am and were at our hotel just after noon. We took a couple hour nap, slept through three alarms before Nicole woke up and realized neither of us heard the alarm. We forced ourselves up and went for a walk. Our hotel is near the Rijksmuseum, and we walked through the park that lies behind it. It was nice to get out and move the legs a little bit, even though we had to have our wits about us so we didn’t get run over by a bicycle or two or three hundred. We had dinner at a small cafe just across the street from our hotel before calling it a night. It began to rain heavily for the rest of the night.
It was a fitful night of sleep as we suffered from jetlag and the feeling that we had to sleep because we were getting up early again. We had a 10am flight out of Schipol (if we could get seats). The KLM gate agent didn’t seem terribly optimistic about our chances, stating that there were far more standbys than there were seats. Nevertheless, against all odds, we got seats together near the front of the economy section. AND our names were called before more than half of the other standbys. This is unprecedented. We arrogantly marched to get our tickets in front of our fellow nonrev travelers. Twelve hours and a few in-flight meals later, we finally touched down in Cape Town just after 9pm in the same time zone we left from. It was relatively painless to get through customs and we took an Uber the rest of the way to our hotel, about 20 minutes away. We arrived at dark, so we couldn’t see a whole lot, but it was quite windy. We had kept nodding off on the flight, but hopefully we can get a decent night’s rest here in Cape Town.
