Travel Blues

My flight from Atlanta to Barcelona was canceled due to Delta's second plane malfunction of that hour, so I'm in an unplanned layover in beautiful downtown Atlanta Holiday Inn. Not QUITE the spa in Spain I was looking forward to.

Luckily, I was one of the few people booked on a flight the next day, so all I'm really losing out on is $160 for my hotel room and a day of my vacation. At least I still get to go. And I had no eardrum problems on the descent, I'm sure in part due to the antibiotics and these crazy earplugs called "Earplanes", recommended by astronauts. Alrighty then!

I let my friend/organizer know about my travel changes, and it turns out I'll be sharing the planeride from Madrid to Malaga with one of my other unmet tripmates. Charlie described him as "Tall, bigger than me, also like a rugby player, blonde blue eyes with a cleft chin." I told Charlie I'd be married to him before we arrived in Granada.

Atlanta is a trip. I wish I had the energy to go explore. I would definitely check out Margaret Mitchell's house, but unfortunately I'm really dizzy/exhausted from the meds for my bronchitis. So I'm just hanging out on the computer, and I'll probably go pool my $7 (?) meal vouchers together and try to buy some lunch and watch All My Children.

All in all I'm fairly sanguine about the whole thing. I mean, I'm so blessed to be able to take a vacation at all. And I met some cool people, since 100 of us were stranded. The Holiday Inn last night was a total pickup joint. I was running from the men.

Last night I had dinner with Paige, a second-year Harvard Law student. We ate grits at an all-night waffle shop together after commiserating in the airport for four hours while we got booked on new flights (she's totally screwed - she has to travel backwards now and has 3 additional layovers. But she'll be traveling until mid-June, so it will all work out in the end).

Definitely odd being in the south for the first time. We were the only white people in the waffle shop, but unlike Chicago, the black people would actually talk to me. But then this morning I met an amazing man in the business center - 40s ish, an RN from South Dakota and a preacher. He and his wife of twenty years just adopted their ninth child this morning (plus 2 of their own). He was such an amazing, loving guy, totally filled with light. And I was so open and spoke to him the whole time, but HE NEVER LOOKED ME IN THE EYE. It's just all so weird. I mean here's this guy doing all this good in the world, and he can't be shy because he's a preacher, and he's been to every state but California and lived in Germany while he served in the military, and he didn't feel he could look me in the eye. I guess because I'm white, or maybe a white woman? I don't know. I hate that feeling. I mean, we connected. He actually really made me think about adopting. But I'm sure we would have connected more if I could have caught a sparkle in his beautiful eyes.

Anyways, I'm off to go find some food and a comfy chair to pass out into. Hopefully I'll wake up in time. I'm so dizzy I feel like I could sleep forever. I'm usually so independent, but I had these weird vivid dreams all night about friends and family rescuing me from dire situations. Like I was calling on my cell phone desperately for help and couldn't get through to anyone. Course, I also kept dreaming I was showing up in innapropriate places and taking my top off. Not like I have a problem with nudity in reality. Oh, and I had a dream that there was a huge resort pool where owners could swim with their dogs, and there were hundreds of them. Mom was in that dream.

By the way, grits taste COMPLETELY different in the south. I highly recommend them.

Sorry about all the non-sequiters. I hope there's some level of lucidity to this post. Clearly I'm not able to judge. God I hate the effects of medication. :)