I'm still in a mental fog as I just woke up from my passed out state for 15 hours. I don't even remember getting into bed...but my flights were almost a disaster, but I made it home at the time I was supposed to.
First off, my last day in Chicago. I had about 4 hours of sleep and Haley had stayed up all night and was tired. After we went to the Departure Breakfast where we ate and simply left, we packed up all our stuff (I was already packed from the night before) and brought our stuff to our friends' room. Haley passed out on their bed because she hadn't slept at all the night before and we were just all talking. I ended up going to the Shedd Aquarium on my own because Haley was just too tired to go. So she stayed in their room and slept about 3 hours more.
I like the Shedd, but I was VERY disappointed in their "World's Oceans" part. Their part with the dolphins, whales, etc and their Rainforest part were pretty cool, though. The Rainforest part because of how they did it and the look of the exhibits. The dolphins part not because it was dolphins and whales, but I liked the overall feel of the entire area. Funny enough, their dolphins are Pacific White Sided Dolphins, which I recognized as soon as I saw them. LoL They also have Alaskan Sea Otters, a California Sea Lion, and Beluga Whales (two with calves!). So that was kind of weird...I'm next to Lake Michigan and seeing animals from the West Coast!
On that note...I'd like to explain my feeling being near a lake. The Great Lakes are HUGE and vast enough that from a human's point of view, they're oceanlike. Except...they're not. Except for the fact you can't see land, it's a completely different feeling. You don't get the ocean spray, the smell of the saltwater, the water is incredibly calm all the time, the coloring is slightly different, there are yachts and HUGE boats everywhere, ducks swim in the water, etc. Going to the Navy Pier was nice and all, the water really is pretty, but it made me miss the ocean. I think that's one reason why going to the Aquarium was different. LoL They have to manufacture all their saltwater and most of the aquarium has saltwater! How weird is that?
Moving on, after the aquarium I made a quick stop at Panera since I was a little hungry and we don't have Panera near here! Once back at the hotel, I went up to the Leaky Suite to say bye to whomever was there. Haley's grandmother picked us up and we went out for REAL Chicago deepdish pizza (oh my gosh...It was SOOOOO good) and then we went to get gelato. After that we went back to their house to get Haley's car and we drove to her house. Once there Haley and I fell asleep for about 4 hours because we were both EXHAUSTED. I slept about 4 hours that night and Haley didn't sleep at all. So she had been napping al dayI woke up after 2 because I had passed out on my arm without realizing it and woke up again after another hour because the alarm went off, which we both wanted to sleep more so we fell back to sleep for another hour. We got up after that and watched some Olympics with her brother and dad and she was on her computer. We left at like 2:30 for the airport and got there around 3am. No one was at the desk, of course, and wouldn't be till 4:30 and my plane left at 6am. I was fine, though. I went and chilled on some chairs. I was so tired I think I could have sat there all day and it wouldn't have mattered! LoL
I was at a kiosk when they opened and I tried THREE different ways to get my flight information, but it couldn't find it. Eventually I talked to someone and they could find my flight information, but apparently it was all screwed up (thank you travelocity!) and they spent about 30 minutes figuring it out. Mind you, the 30 minutes was approaching 5:15am. Travelocity, if you remember (did I blog about it?), messed up my return flight home months ago and I had to call them about it. My flight from Chicago changed so they had me left in Denver on a multi-destination ticket instead of roundtrip. When I called them, they had to put me onto all new flights (ORD to Cincinnati to LAX to Monterey) to get me home. Apparently that messed up my ticket.
Anyway, I was panicking, but I got to my gate fine, but it left me so I couldn't grab a drink or food before the plane. I was okay at that time and I had two breakfast bars in my backpack anyway. The flight to Cincinnati from O'Hare is a little more than an hour and I slept on the entire thing, which was kind of a shame because I was ZONE 1 for loading! So I had two seats in a row and a LOT of leg room. LoL I wasn't first class (they were in front of us), but I must have been business class because of being zone 1. It was kind of funny, though, because that plane was a prop plane and I hadn't been in that big of a prop plane in a long time! Getting off the plane, I just quickly walked to my next gate (which was in another terminal...*sigh*) because I had like 30 minutes before it took off and I had seat requests for ALL three of my flights because of whatever got messed up. So I get there and they had a window seat at the emergency exit open. I took it so I had, once again, a LOT of leg room. I passed out for the majority of that flight too. I woke up for about a half hour because I was slightly cold and it was causing me to not get back to sleep. I got up to get my sweater and then fell back to sleep. I woke up when an announcement was made (they're hard to sleep through...) and a few other times, but no drinks or food for me!
My flight landed on time in LAX and I had about a 2 hour layover. So I went and got food and drink, called my mom and Chris (yes, in that order!), and walked around a bit. The problem was when I landed, my flight had no gate number so I was paranoid about that. I eventually, about 40 minutes before my flight took off, went and asked and it turns out I had to go to gate 42B to get the shuttle to go to the American Airlines terminal for the smaller planes. Ugh! I had forgotten! I've never flown Delta from LAX to Monterey. I've only flown AA to LAX to Monterey and it tells you ON the screens, but because AA does the flight, Delta doesn't seem fit to even tell you to go to 42B! So...I hurried over there and JUST missed a shuttle. I was getting nervous then I'd miss my flight and two other ladies showed up. We waited, not kidding you, 20 minutes for the shuttle to show. We get on and we get there and we RUN down the hallway (of course it'd be at the VERY end) and I say, "I have a seat request." The lady goes, "oh my gosh. I closed the flight! Where were you?!" So I did a quick one sentence explanation and she says, "are you sure you're on this flight?" and I'm all "Yes!" She was quick, though. In less than 2 minutes (the length of our conversation time) I had my boarding pass and onto the flight. I sat down in the seat behind where I was supposed to be (so I didn't have to move the guy in the aisle seat) with 2-3 minutes left to spare before the flight was supposed to take off. I actually boarded the plane with one of the ladies who was late too (not bad!). The ironic thing? We ended up having to wait almost 20 minutes because the didn't empty out the lavatory, which no one was happy about because the plane had been at the gate for almost 3 hours. LoL I actually stayed awake long enough on the flight to get a drink on the flight (the first time on a flight for this trip) and then I passed out after that. I was jolted awake with the announcement we were preparing to land.
Once landed, I realized my backpack felt a little wet in the corner my Snapple was in. I hugged my mom and we went to the baggage claim and I checked my backpack. Sure enough, my Snapple DID leak and I checked all my stuff. My newest Science magazine got most of the liquid. My computer case that's neoprene got some of it too, but it didn't soak through to my computer. I also had two of my signed books in there, but had placed them into a Borders plastic bag and the bag saved them! The bag was wet on the outside, but my books were fine (or as fine as they could be being in a backpack!). My luggage also arrived on this flight too! I was worried because LAX has this "bags must be checked in one hour prior to your departure or your luggage won't arrive with you." (It's true too...my luggage got scanned late once and it didn't arrive with me...) Apparently ORD doesn't have that rule. :P
Anyway, I'm all unpacked already. I came home after my mom and I ate out and immediately unpacked. I have a load of laundry to do now! The humidity definitely makes it so you can't wear clothes more than once. LoL After unpacking I basically passed out. I don't even remember getting into bed and I slept the ENTIRE night through. I think the only reason I even got up is because I had to use the bathroom. :P Maybe I can use this to get my sleeping schedule back on track! Ooh! I should try it!
Anyway, with that, I'm off to shower! I might upload some other photos from other people on Facebook, but that'll take a day or two. I need to get my life back on track with grad school applications and Contest work. I'm behind in responses to people in Contests from the Riddle Contest and need to compile the survey results. :P
Okay...Laters!
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