So I’m a little late getting this post written but better late than never, right?
Between work, travel, and finishing up things for our own wedding festivities next month, Whitney and I have been very busy lately. It seems like everytime I would sit down to work on a post, we would immediately get drawn into something else. Anways, enough with the excuses, on to the post!
Weddings
Over the first weekend of August, I was back in the US for the Johnson/Smith wedding in good ole Greenville, NC! For those of you keeping tabs (obviously everyone reading this does…), we can add this to string of travel I have going recently – May: London, England; June: Arolla, Switzerland; July: Amsterdam, Netherlands/Paris, France; August: Greenville, NC, USA. Of course things will continue into September but we will come to that later.
So Greenville, NC….home of the East Carolina University Pirates and a lot of Walmarts. It’s hard to believe that this was my first time back to Greenville since Whitney and I completed our masters. Aside from all of the new Walmarts (seriously, there at least 4 there now….two super centers), Greenville has changed dramaticlly since our time there. Most of our old hangouts are gone now, replaced by classier establishments which, if we are honest, is not necessarily a bad thing. Greenville and ECU more specifically has always had the repuation as a party school and they are trying to clean it up. It was fun to see all the changes, but I digress from the topic at hand – I was in Greenville for the wedding of our good friend Mike Smith!
Mike, Whitney, and I began our masters at the same time and have been friends ever since. Sadly, however, Whitney was unable to accompany me on this trip to due work (but as shall see in the next section, she is probably glad she didn’t). Much as Whitney did last year when she traveled back to the US for a wedding, this was an extremely short trip – leave on Wednesday, back on Monday. Not fun travel-wise but worth the trip!
I arrived in Greenville late on Wednesday night, so Thursday was a relax, recover, and explore Greenville day. Friday night and Saturday brought wedding festivities and seeing long lost friends! First and foremost, the wedding and all related activities were fantastic. Congratulations Heather & Mike – it was an honor to be a part of your big day!
As I said, the wedding was also an excuse to see lots of friends, many of which I had not seen in a number of years.
All-in-all, it was a great weekend. Beautiful wedding, good friends, and warmth/sunshine (something we don’t get here in Holland). At this point I should also mention that the majority of the wedding and friend pictures were not taken by me. Luckily all those long lost friends like to share photos – thanks guys!
In other wedding related news, I think Whitney and I are finally all set for our own wedding extravganza in a couple of weeks. We just finished up confirming all the details for our Croatia ceremony and we hear that our celebration stateside is looking equally exciting (although we aren’t allowed to know the details). To say that we are excited for both parts is an understatement. We leave in three weeks!
Weather
I could have easily called this section “Travel” or more appropiately “How can this many things go wrong with travel in one trip?!” but weather is actually the common theme throughout.
As I said previously, my trip stateside was extremely fast and my time in Greenville was excellent. However, everything outside of Greenville was not so great. The trip was book ended by some pretty bad travel. In retrospect, I can laugh about it, but at the time, not so much.
As is always the case when we travel from Groningen, we have to take a 2+ hour train ride to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. So, off I go at 5:00 on Wednesday morning to catch the first train out of the city. As is expected from dutch weather, it was raining that morning so I had a nice, wet 20 minute walk to begin my trip (too early for buses and too much luggage for the bike). Despite the wet start, I made it to Amsterdam with no problems and off I went to Philadelphia, PA. So far so good.
At this point, I cannot help but to call out American Airlines – my Amsterdam to Philadelphia flight was on a very outdated plane. Small, leather seats, no seat back entertainment system, and tv’s hanging from the ceiling.
Now I am by no means a travel snob – we always travel economy and we love to fly with budget airlines – but come on, it is 2016! Why is this plane still being used for an 8 hour, international flight? I get that planes are expensive to upgrade/replace, but my airfare from Amsterdam to Greenville, NC certainly wasn’t cheap! I don’t think I am too out of line to expect a little more. Anyways, off topic, back to the post.
Because of some changes in my flight plan, once making it to Philadelphia I had a 6 hour layover. Not enjoyable, but doable. Six hours later, I boarded for Charlottle, NC only to be delayed due to weather for roughly an hour (not in Philadelphia, but in Charlotte). As such, I landed late in Charlottle and had to run through the airport to make my final flight to Greenville, NC. I made the flight and, despite some more minor delays (again, weather related), I finally landed in Greenville around midnight, ~25 hours since leaving our apartment in Groningen. Should be the end of the adventure, right? Well, in normal circumstances, yes. But this trip was not normal. Since I arrived at midnight, the car rental desk (where I had a reservation) was closed. The next logical thought would be to get a taxi but once again, this is Greenville. For whatever reason, taxi service in Greenville is TERRIBLE. Calling any of the operating taxi companies results in nothing more than a “we can get you one there at some point, no estimate of the time”. From three years living there, I can tell you with near 100% confidence, they never come. Yes, I tried and no, they never came. Being that Uber or Lyft do not operate in Greenville, I was stuck, with no phone (I had yet to get a SIM card for the US and was only making calls using google voice on airport wifi), no ride to my hotel, and the airport was closing. Luckily, the kindness of an airport employee saved me by givng me a ride to the hotel after he got off work. This type of stuff never happens when Whitney and I travel together…
So that was my travel experience just getting to Greenville. Not so bad right? A few delays, one long layover, a bit of airport running, and a rather comical method of getting to my hotel. It could have beeen worse.
On Sunday, I was scheduled to leave Greenville at 6:00 in the afternoon. So following brunch, I had some time to kill and decided that seeing a movie was as good an option as any. During the movie, I got a notification that my 6:00 flight was delayed due to weather in Charlotte. Not a big deal. This process continued for the next 20-30 minutes, with each notification bringing a later flight time. Again, no big deal, these things happen. It wasn’t until the 4th or 5th notification that I really began to worry and, sure enough, my flight got canceled. A perfectly clear, sunny day in Greenville and weather on the other side of the state had canceled all flights for the day. So following the movie, I was able to reschedule for the next day (Monday). Because the cancellation was due to weather or “an act of God” in airline terms, this meant I was to recieve no help for the extra night in Greenville. Luckily, I was able to extend my car rental for no additional cost (how often does that happen?!) and avoided additional hotel costs by staying with the parents of our good friend Brian Sufrinko. This worked out rather well because it meant more Sufrinko time!…
…and more Sufrinko dog time! Juneau and Anika are our buds from our time in Greenville and Pittsburgh and I hadn’t seen them in a long time!
Monday morning brought the news that Delta flight systems had crashed and flights world-wide had been canceled. Luckily, I was on American Airlines but heading to the airport, I was not optimistic. Everything worked out and I successfully made it Charlotte, only to have another 6+ hour layover. The first long layover was doable, but this time it was torture. On a positive note, the Olympics were on so at least I had some entertainment.
When I was finally able to board for my flight to London, we were, surprise surprise, delayed due to weather. So there we sat on the tarmac, waiting for all East and North bound flights to be rescheduled. Nearly two hours later, we finally took off. Again, trying to see the silver lining here: at least this was a nice, new plane and no one sat beside me. A window seat, with extra room, and an entertainment system. Nice!
If you have ever flown into London Heathrow, you are aware that it is a very large airport. I you haven’t – London Heathrow is a very large airport. As such, it’s nice to have some extra time to navigate switching terminals, going through customs and security, having a cup of coffee after an all night flight, etc. Well, due to my delay weather delay in Charlotte, I had none of these luxuries. I had exactly 40 minutes until my final flight to Amsterdam and I used every second of it. I made it to my gate just as they were doing final call for boarding.
And finally, to top off the whole experience, my luggage did not make the short connection. So, while I was in Amsterdam waiting at baggage claim, my luggage was still sitting in London. Remember how I said this was during the whole Delta power outage fiasco? Well this meant that I had to stand in line for an hour and a half just to file a lost luggage claim (it was successfully delivered to our apartment a few days later). My flight landed in Amsterdam at 2:00 and I finally made it home to Groningen a little before 7:00. As I said eariler, this type of stuff never happens when Whitney and I travel together…
& More
Now that the majority of our wedding and party details are set, we plan to take the next few weeks to do a lot of nothing! The only thing we have scheduled is a quick diving trip to a local indoor facility this weekend for a few practice dives before Croatia. Other than that, we will be trying our best to soak up every bit of sunshine we can so that we don’t look like ghosts in our wedding pictures. Don’t believe that summers are really that bad here? The National Dutch Weather bureau just officially declared this summer a disappointment. We used to say that the weather here doesn’t bother us, but I think it’s starting to wear on us a bit.
Until next time,
The Shwits 