The band came off stage about 1:30am last night. Those of us who had early flights were thrown into a runner van and split the venue around 2:45. Made it into my hotel room just past 3:30, with just enough time to take a shower and re-pack both of my bags.
The shower kinda sucked because the handheld nozzle (which was the ONLY nozzle) was mounted above my head and was NOT adjustable in any way. It simply sprayed straight across the shower stall, over my head, which meant that to get the water to hit me anywhere, I had to hold it in my hand. Made me fell like I'd lost an arm because I was doing everything one-handed.
Lobby call for the drive to the airport was 4:30. My first flight of the day was Vienna-to-Brussels, departing at 6:50. Mark Wise (security) and Seth Kendall were on this flight with me. Once we reached Brussels, though, we split up as they were heading through Chicago next, and I was flying through JFK.
I managed to sleep for about 20 minutes on the first leg.
My Brussels-to-JFK flight was well over 8 hours of misery. It's possible that I slept for 30 minutes, but I doubt it. I had the sweetest little 60-ish Brazilian woman next to me and she was a tiny thing, but when she fell asleep, it was like she could take over 3 or 4 seats. She wasn't the reason I couldn't sleep, though; I just have a hard time sleeping in any kind of seat because I'm a "side" sleeper.
Got to JFK to find that my third leg, JFK to Raleigh, was delayed, but only by 30 minutes. By this point, I'd been awake far too long and was wicked tired. Finally, my flight announced for boarding and as I handed my ticket to the gate agent, she looked at it and said, "Sugar, you're on the next flight." Wha?
Sure as hell, this was a fuck-up of stupendous proportion. I wasn't gonna take it out on her cuz she was as sweet as can be and it had nothing to do with her. But man, not today, puh-leeze!
I had in my pocket my printed itinerary, which I pulled out and showed her. It had me on THIS flight, confirmed, yet when I was given the boarding pass for this flight some 12 hours ago, I was put on another flight 90 minutes later than the itinerary said. And of course, that one's delayed, too. This sucked with a capital SUCK.
By this point, I've been awake for 38 hours, other than the 50 total minutes of catnaps on the first 2 flights, and I’m gonna be awake for at least the next 6 or 7…
The world continued to suck. I even changed airlines (to JetBlue) and then THAT flight got delayed.
I finally got home at 1am. At which point I sat up catching up on email and waiting for the AC to cool the house down enough where I could sleep. After 3 weeks of European hotels, I was looking for a cold room to rest in.
I finally got to bed at 3am, which was 9am tomorrow in Vienna. All told, I've been awake for 49 hours, by far the longest I've ever stayed awake. And I hope that this record stands for all time, cuz I NEVER want to go through this day again…
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