At least they're consistent

Moonbear

Continental that is. I tried to get a flight on every other airline first, but they were all booked, so here I am, sitting in Newark waiting for a flight that's at least 2 hours late (there are about 5 flights also delayed ahead of this one). One of the others ahead of my flight has already been boarded and unboarded, replaced with a new plane and reboarded...par for the course. They say all the morning flights are already full, otherwise I was just going to stay with a friend for the night and take a morning flight instead of sitting around here all night and then getting to Quebec at 1 AM only to have to still get through customs and a 20 min cab ride to the hotel.

I'm getting very bored since I already had a nearly 3 hour connection time (though, if I didn't have that much time, the flight would have been on time and I'd have still been standing in the line for security since they make you go through it again if you have to change terminals...you'd think they could find a way that you could get between the terminals a bit faster).

So, where is everybody! I'm bored! Post something interesting to read. I left my Harry Potter book at home and have proofread two manuscripts already and read all the journal articles I brought with me.

hypatia

awww poor Moonbear, waiting in airports ranks right up there with..well right now I can't think of anything more horrid. Except being made to stay on a plane for 6 hours on a snowed in runway...with someone sitting next to you, takeing full advantage of the barf bags. And then you finally get home to find you had caught the flu from them.

On a different note, I lost power at the shop today, and had to write receipts out by hand. I discovered one of my summer sales help couldn't count back change, and neither of them could figure the 6% sales tax One of them just finished high school the other will be a senor in the fall.

Moonbear

Ugh! I've done the sit on a plane for 6 hours thing before, but never next to anyone sick. Okay, thanks for letting me know there's something worse. At least I found an outlet to plug in my laptop and cell phone to recharge all my batteries.

It's really scary how incompetent the average student (or high school grad) is in math nowadays, even in the most basic arithmetic. Geez, don't they teach you how to count money way back in 1st or 2nd grade? The public schools in MI seem pretty bad. When I was living up there, I was often shocked and appalled at the blank stares the kids in the fast food places had when they were trying to count change (even when they had a register in front of them that told them how much they needed).

Ivan Seeking

I HATE travel for the very reasons mentioned here. If I never see another airport it would be too soon.

Hang in there MB.

hypatia

I should of warned her the men in Quebec tend to pinch.

Moonbear

Is that supposed to be good or bad?

I'm in Quebec now, and have internet access in my room, and a lovely view (I think...hard to tell when it's dark out) of the Old City. And, I'm on the 13th floor! Good thing I'm not superstitious. I thought hotels always skipped 13 when numbering floors.

And I guess I better learn French quickly! I know everyone speaks English too, but a LOT of the signs are in French only (I knew this would happen, so made sure I at least knew the word for Exit so I'd find my way out of the airport. ) I'm remembering the time I drove the Canadian route from MI to NY and got to Montreal without a map and then the road signs suddenly turned all French and I was really hoping "Ponte" was the bridge back to the US.

Well, just thought I'd check in and let you all know I finally got out of the airport. And now I'm off to bed.

*Kia*

This made me laugh beacuse so many time s one of my staff will ask me if a customer can have discount because say a flower pot has a chip in it or some such thing.
I'll tell them to take 10% off and they look at me blankly and ask how much is that?????????????????????

honestrosewater

Glad you had a safe trip. People travelling makes me nervous.
You could really have some fun with the language thing. Whenever you come across a hot guy (edit: or 'male person'), you can say something very naughty in French and pretend it was just a mistake. ( ) That's what I would do anyway.

Evo

I'm happy that you made it to your hotel. Continental is notorious for delays. Hope you have a good time in Quebec!! Watch out for those French Canadian men.

Moonbear

Wait, wait, but then he might get the wrong impression and think I didn't mean it! I would have to know the right thing to say first. The map I got of the city from the hotel is all in French, so that's actually good, because then I just need to match names on the map with names on signs and don't have to worry about translating.

Well, off I go. I truly have done no advanced planning for this trip, so I know the name of my hotel and the street it's on and will hail a cab to get back if I get completely lost. Sometimes it's fun to see a city without knowing anything of what to expect first. I'm never disappointed this way.

I just know I need to find a place to buy a sweater (I meant to bring a jacket for evenings...it's cold up here at night!), but in my last minute rush to get out the door, didn't remember to grab it (jackets were the last thing on my mind as I walked out into the sweltering, sticky heat at home).

So, today's adventures will include some shopping I think, or I'll need to find one of those cute guys with a French-Canadian accent to snuggle up with to keep me warm. I'm thinking my bets are better looking for a sweater.

Hey, I never asked, do we have any PFers in the Quebec City area who might be interested in meeting up somewhere for a cup of coffee or something during the week?

Moonbear

Oh, I know it! They always claim it's the weather, but strangely, none of the other airlines seem to run into those same storms they do; really, I know it wasn't weather because I was asking where that bad weather was and I couldn't get a straight answer on it, and sitting around the airport, I was watching the weather reports up on the monitors there, and other than a few little scattered clouds, didn't even see anything that should have caused delays (for a summer afternoon, the weather map was remarkably clear). They should be able to fly over storms between airports. I would have understood an hour delay, my flight in was an hour delayed because we spent about an hour in a holding pattern waiting for clearance to land (probably because all of Continental's off-schedule flights were clogging up the runways). I'm sure it was that one plane that had mechanical problems and had to be unloaded and changed to another plane (usually I'm sitting on the plane while they do their maintenance...that's totally typical of them to push back from the gate then start repairing something...if they have the passengers on board and push back from the gate, I think it gets counted as on-time, even if it's going to sit 30 ft from the gate being repaired). Anyway, I'm guessing they ended up playing musical planes and delayed everyone because they don't plan ahead for planes that need to be taken out of service for repairs.

Well, my friend in NYC already knows my return flight schedule so I again have a place to stay if I end up with a problem with my connection through Newark again.

Joel

Well, I hate waiting, but there is one thing I hate even more; being late. I was last spring in Florence with my girlfriend and we left early from our hotel to make it to the airport without a rush. As it turned out there where two airports close to Florence, one a 10mins drive and the other a 50mins drive and guess if we headed for the wrong one. Once telling the cab to step on it, we ended up running through the airport and begging at the check-in to let us on the flight. Our tickes where non-changable and we had a pretty tight budjet, so we ended up shaking on the plane seats overwhelmingly happy and with a pulse close to 200.

So, at least you wheren't late!

selfAdjoint

My daughter just had the same thing happen to her on Southwestern. They said the flight was cancelled because of crew problems, but she is sure it was just a lightly occupied flight and the airline didn't want to spend money flying a loser from Cincinnnati to Ocanamewok.

Evo

The problem was that the crew didn't want to go to Ocanamewok.

Moonbear

They needed to wait for a flight attendant who could pronounce the airport name.

Mission accomplished here. I found the Old City and I found the downtown area, and I found a fabric store with Velcro so I can hang my poster (didn't have time to buy that before leaving and the conference organizers won't be providing it...well, better than wondering if I can get pushpins through aiport security I suppose). I had lunch in the Old City...seafood crepes...yummy! And GOOD coffee (cafe I always learn the important words first). I now know est from oest and can point in the correct direction when I need to find it. And I got back to the hotel before the rain started. All in all, a good deal. Now I think I'll hit the shower after all that walking in the hot sun (it's been fluctuating rather wildly in temperature today as the clouds come and go...it goes from being slightly chilly, to perfect walking temperature, to being a tad too hot and sunny). There's a street fair going on a block from the hotel, which actually doesn't thrill me because I don't like tons of crowds when I'm just trying to get from place A to place B.

The conference doesn't start until tomorrow, but I can register soon and then head off to meet my neuroendocrine friends/colleagues for dinner.

So, really is there anyone on PF who is at Laval? They are shuttling people to dorms there (the cheapskate professors and the poor students/postdocs), so I could catch a shuttle that way easily enough. Or are all you Canadians over on the other side of the country?

honestrosewater

See, you've got game- you'll think of something. When he looks surprised, you give a mischievous smile, say you're sorry, you really need to practice your French (throw in something about trilling your r's). He offers to teach you a few things over "coffee" ()...
Yeah, just like that. Go, Moonbear.