Latest / Travel Mug Podcast / Alicia's Travel Fails - Airport Mishaps, Missing Flights & Annoying Seat Mates

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Alicia's Travel Fails - Airport Mishaps, Missing Flights & Annoying Seat Mates · Travel Mug Podcast

• 0:00
  Jenn: Hey everybody.
• 0:00
  Jenn: Welcome back to the travel mug podcast.
• 0:03
  Jenn: We have our really fun series of episodes coming up and I'm really excited.
• 0:09
  Jenn: So we're going to be sharing stories of travel fails.
• 0:13
  Jenn: So Meggan and I have kind of chatted about our various fails over the years.
• 0:18
  Jenn: So we're going to bring in new people to chat that there.
• 0:21
  Jenn: So it's not just our same old stories cause we haven't been anywhere.
• 0:26
  Meggan: We've been nowhere.
• 0:29
  Jenn: Anyway, first up we're bringing on Alicia Sims from secret Nova Scotia.
• 0:35
  Jenn: Rolling Sea tattoos.
• 0:36
  Jenn: She does all of the things she's been on the show before Alicia, your first two time guest.
• 0:42
  Jenn: So welcome.
• 0:48
  Jenn: And I'm really excited to hear all your, your travel stories.
• 0:55
  Alicia: There are so many,
• 0:57
  Jenn: when you first messaged me about your travel fail all that you're going to tell us about.
• 1:04
  Jenn: Laughed out loud, to my phone I was like, okay.
• 1:10
  Jenn: Yeah.
• 1:11
  Jenn: I got to hear her tell this.
• 1:13
  Alicia: Yeah, that's definitely my most epic travel fail without a doubt.
• 1:17
  Alicia: And hopefully something like this never happens again.
• 1:21
  Meggan: Well, do you share, we got to hear this.
• 1:24
  Alicia: Okay.
• 1:25
  Alicia: Well I was in Scotland, I think it was 2012.
• 1:29
  Alicia: So it was a hot minute.
• 1:32
  Alicia: And I was actually on my way from Scotland to Spain and I was meeting two people who were coming from Canada straight to Spain.
• 1:41
  Alicia: And there was a bit of flurry between the booking of their tickets and my ticket.
• 1:47
  Alicia: I think in my head, our flight times were really close in the different countries and I was focusing on their flight time.
• 1:54
  Alicia: So I checked into the airport, thought I had all this time, went to the bookstore and picked up a copy of Tina Fey's bossy pants.
• 2:03
  Jenn: I love that book
• 2:05
  Alicia: apparently.
• 2:06
  Alicia: So did I, I picked up this.
• 2:10
  Alicia: I was sitting outside my gate.
• 2:12
  Alicia: And if you haven't read this book, it is so funny.
• 2:16
  Alicia: Her writing is incredible.
• 2:18
  Alicia: You get so lost in the story.
• 2:20
  Alicia: So lost in fact that you miss your flight.
• 2:24
  Alicia: And because you're in Scotland and their accent is so thick there at the airport.
• 2:30
  Alicia: You don't hear them calling your name, that you're missing your flight.
• 2:35
  Alicia: Oh, that is legitimately what happened to me.
• 2:40
  Alicia: I sat there as,
• 2:43
  Meggan: when you knew this, like you're reading what next,
• 2:47
  Alicia: like I look up at the gate.
• 2:52
  Alicia: What is happening right now?
• 2:54
  Alicia: Like where's the plane?
• 2:55
  Alicia: Why aren't people boarding, like what's going on?
• 2:58
  Alicia: So I assumed there was also a gate change.
• 2:59
  Alicia: I didn't realize that's another story.
• 3:02
  Alicia: And I.
• 3:03
  Alicia: This isn't right.
• 3:04
  Alicia: But what happened is the plane had actually, I think, left before I even sat down and had the book in my hand because I was so close to my time, not realizing.
• 3:15
  Alicia: I know.
• 3:16
  Alicia: So then I ran downstairs, like a bat out of hell and my suitcase was in the airline office and I went and looked at it and they were like, What happened?
• 3:30
  Alicia: I was sitting right there and they're like, we called your name.
• 3:34
  Alicia: And like, because I like, it was just this like hysteria match between the two of us.
• 3:42
  Alicia: Like, it was just crazy.
• 3:43
  Alicia: And I had been there at the time with my friends who had dropped us dropped me off.
• 3:46
  Alicia: Like we had sat and had lunch before I went through security and they were like, I did not hear them calling.
• 3:52
  Alicia: So anyway, I ended up having to try and get another flight over.
• 3:56
  Alicia: Cause I had to still get to Spain.
• 3:58
  Jenn: Right.
• 3:59
  Alicia: Not honor me a ticket to get on another flight over, which was absolutely brutal.
• 4:05
  Alicia: So it was the most expensive mistake I've ever made.
• 4:09
  Alicia: And I actually thought about writing Tina Fey, a letter to tell her how much I enjoyed your book so much that I actually missed a flight sitting there being completely enthralled by it.
• 4:21
  Meggan: I was actually just going to say that I was just be like, we need to like, get this story to Tina Fey,
• 4:29
  Alicia: take your, yeah.
• 4:31
  Alicia: Your book, profits, and pay for the fancy expensive ticket.
• 4:34
  Alicia: I then had to pay to get to Spain.
• 4:37
  Jenn: Oh my god.
• 4:38
  Jenn: So brutal
• 4:40
  Meggan: I would have crapped my pants and like vomited all at the same time.
• 4:45
  Alicia: I definitely felt a lot of those things.
• 4:48
  Alicia: And then it actually got worse because this was a time before you could use your cell phones in different countries and had packages.
• 4:55
  Alicia: So I had no way to alert the people who were on their way over that I wasn't there, but I still got there first, but they were having their own issues with their plane.
• 5:06
  Alicia: And I got to Spain.
• 5:09
  Alicia: I had hotel for the night because they were coming in the next morning.
• 5:12
  Alicia: I got to the airport in Spain.
• 5:13
  Alicia: I'm standing there.
• 5:14
  Alicia: I'm waiting.
• 5:16
  Alicia: Flights are coming.
• 5:17
  Alicia: They're not coming through.
• 5:18
  Alicia: And I don't know if you've been in what airport was.
• 5:23
  Alicia: I want to say Barcelona, but I'm not, I'm pretty sure that was because that's the first place that we went and there's a lot of traffic.
• 5:28
  Alicia: There are a lot of flights coming through.
• 5:30
  Alicia: It looked like their flight had landed.
• 5:31
  Alicia: Nobody came out, nobody came out and they had gotten, I can't remember the exact story now, but I think they had gotten sent on another flight because the flight that they had either leaving Halifax or Heathrow I had to change planes because they had technical errors, whatever happening there.
• 5:48
  Alicia: So they ended up being over an hour and 45 minutes late from their landing time.
• 5:52
  Alicia: I know we have no way to contact each other.
• 5:54
  Alicia: They have no way to let me know.
• 5:55
  Alicia: I'm like when they came out the gate, I spontaneously busted into tears.
• 6:01
  Meggan: So I would have to, I would have to, yeah,
• 6:05
  Alicia: it was 24 of the most stressful hours of my life.
• 6:11
  Meggan: Oh my God.
• 6:12
  Meggan: So.
• 6:13
  Meggan: When did you get there in Spain compared to when you should have like a couple hours later?
• 6:18
  Meggan: Or like,
• 6:20
  Alicia: I don't know.
• 6:21
  Alicia: I think it was a lot later.
• 6:22
  Alicia: I think I remember they had to put me on a plane too.
• 6:28
  Alicia: I was going to Heathrow and then from Heathrow to Barcelona and I, this was the first time I'd ever come through Heathrow because when I flew to Scotland, WestJet had been doing the direct flights to Glasgow I had never landed there.
• 6:43
  Alicia: I was freaking out because I had to get my luggage and go find another plane at the time.
• 6:49
  Alicia: So I can't remember if I had to rebook both connections or if I just missed the one, I think I was going to have more time in Heathrow to get that original flight to Spain.
• 6:58
  Alicia: When I was like full body sweat, sitting in my seat on the plane, waiting to land in Heathrow.
• 7:05
  Alicia: And we kept circling saying, we're just waiting to get the go-ahead to land.
• 7:09
  Alicia: And I'm like, Like visibly sweating to me is like, this happens all the time.
• 7:14
  Alicia: Every time I come through Heathrow, like we never land on time.
• 7:17
  Alicia: I'm like, great,
• 7:20
  Meggan: wonderful.
• 7:22
  Alicia: Yeah.
• 7:22
  Alicia: Like there's going to be headlines of this crazy Canadian who was elbowing people down the aisle, bolted down, trying to get to their next flight to Spain,
• 7:30
  Meggan: yelling at people.
• 7:31
  Meggan: You don't understand the day I've had.
• 7:34
  Alicia: Yeah, international travel by yourself with like meeting other parties is insanely stressful.
• 7:41
  Alicia: Like if anybody's internationally traveled, knowing like nothing runs on time.
• 7:45
  Alicia: Absolutely nothing.
• 7:47
  Jenn: Yeah, that's so stressful.
• 7:50
  Jenn: And it's funny because we're going to Scotland in June.
• 7:53
  Jenn: So like, I'm not going to miss that flight.
• 7:55
  Jenn: I'm not going to know,
• 7:57
  Alicia: just know if they're calling your name, you probably won't know it
• 8:01
  Meggan: just be there and be ready
• 8:04
  Jenn: even in like Halifax and they call names.
• 8:07
  Jenn: It's like, what did, what did the last time I flew?
• 8:13
  Jenn: They called Nelson, which my last name is Neilson so many people look at it and say, Nelson.
• 8:19
  Jenn: And I was like, do they want me or not?
• 8:25
  Jenn: I'm not sure, but they didn't want me.
• 8:28
  Jenn: They wanted a party, a two when I was a party of one.
• 8:30
  Jenn: So it was not me that time, but
• 8:33
  Meggan: I wonder when they call names, Where are these people and why do you need your name called now?
• 8:40
  Meggan: We know
• 8:41
  Jenn: now we know cause you're missing
• 8:43
  Meggan: Could be a variety of things.
• 8:47
  Alicia: Well, I also had my name called in the other story I was telling about how the first time I flew to Australia, which is a, so it was Newfoundland and Newark, Newark to LA LA to Sydney, Sydney to Tasmania.
• 9:00
  Alicia: On the very first leg we left Newfoundland.
• 9:02
  Alicia: No problem.
• 9:03
  Alicia: We got to Newark they gave us all of our boarding passes when we left Newfoundland, which should have been a red flag right there.
• 9:09
  Alicia: That that was not going to insane on this international travel.
• 9:14
  Alicia: But we got to Newark, never had been there before.
• 9:17
  Alicia: It's quite a large airport, so we're like, we got lots of time.
• 9:20
  Alicia: We'll go settle in at our gate.
• 9:21
  Alicia: No problem.
• 9:22
  Alicia: We did that.
• 9:23
  Alicia: And.
• 9:24
  Alicia: No plane there.
• 9:25
  Alicia: And there's, you know, enough people around that you thought, okay, well this could be a flight.
• 9:29
  Alicia: And then it's getting closer to like take off time.
• 9:32
  Alicia: Not even born boarding time has gone and there's no plane and nobody has said anything.
• 9:38
  Alicia: So then we decided to go and look at departure board to see, and sure enough, it wasn't the gate, whatever had changed.
• 9:43
  Alicia: Didn't even think when we landed to look at the actual airport departure board to see if it was the same as our boarding pass.
• 9:50
  Alicia: And it was like more than 50 gates that we had to go and they're calling our names first time I've ever been the person.
• 9:57
  Alicia: And the only time I think that they've been calling your name, that they're like, we're boarding, we're going to take your luggage.
• 10:05
  Alicia: And we are just like, Hofing it down and find this gate, like, you know, when you run or, you know, when you exert yourself more than you should, and then you get to like taste of blood in your mouth.
• 10:19
  Alicia: Yeah.
• 10:20
  Alicia: That was that's how hard we ran to not miss that flight, which would then miss every other flight we have.
• 10:28
  Alicia: I have the time.
• 10:30
  Meggan: Yeah.
• 10:30
  Meggan: That is brutal.
• 10:31
  Meggan: Yeah.
• 10:32
  Meggan: The airport's like give you a whole different sense of anxiety then you can find in the real world, because like, if you do have connections, like if you're on a plane and you're waiting for like to land to get to the next one, like you can't even concentrate because you're.
• 10:50
  Meggan: We need to land.
• 10:51
  Meggan: I can get on with my life and it's a whole different level of stress.
• 10:57
  Alicia: Oh my God.
• 10:58
  Alicia: Just this last week I was in Alberta and I had that tight turnaround time that will WestJet changed my direct flight to a connecting flight in Pearson, which is Toronto airport.
• 11:07
  Alicia: And I mean, that airport is notoriously large and late and it was a 50 minute turnaround from landing time to take off time.
• 11:16
  Alicia: It was like a luggage isn't making it.
• 11:17
  Alicia: There's just no way.
• 11:19
  Alicia: We got there on time and then we're sitting.
• 11:22
  Alicia: On the runway, like waiting to go to the gate and there's like, sorry, folks, we're waiting on ground crew.
• 11:28
  Alicia: This is, you know, on the airport side, this is an us sitting, 40 people.
• 11:33
  Alicia: They get on the the announcement and say 40 people, 41 people.
• 11:36
  Alicia: Sorry, I was the 41 are waiting for the tight connection.
• 11:40
  Alicia: So if you don't have a connection, please just sit down and let these people go.
• 11:45
  Alicia: Oh, my God.
• 11:47
  Alicia: Finally, the ground crew comes and we're moving up to the gate.
• 11:51
  Alicia: It's like, okay, it's good.
• 11:52
  Alicia: We still got time.
• 11:52
  Alicia: I still got 30 minutes until take off time.
• 11:54
  Alicia: It's fine.
• 11:55
  Alicia: Hopefully it's one of these really close gates.
• 11:57
  Alicia: And then we're sitting on the plane.
• 12:00
  Alicia: Nothing's happening.
• 12:01
  Alicia: Everyone's standing in the aisle waiting to get off the plane and they come on the announcement again and say, unfortunately, the gate.
• 12:10
  Alicia: Frozen shut the wheels that pull the gate over to the plane.
• 12:14
  Alicia: So you can get off are actually frozen and malfunctioning and they can't get them to work.
• 12:20
  Alicia: So again, not our fault, not the airlines fault.
• 12:24
  Alicia: This is all the airports doing.
• 12:26
  Alicia: Please just hang tight.
• 12:28
  Alicia: And we're like, oh my God.
• 12:29
  Alicia: Oh my God.
• 12:29
  Alicia: We sat there for 56 minutes.
• 12:31
  Alicia: So 50 minutes was the layover.
• 12:33
  Alicia: We had 56 minutes before they got the gate over and the plane open and everybody got up.
• 12:39
  Meggan: Oh my god.
• 12:41
  Meggan: And then did you miss?
• 12:42
  Meggan: I can't remember what happened?
• 12:43
  Meggan: Did you miss your flight?
• 12:44
  Alicia: Oh yeah.
• 12:46
  Alicia: Every, every 41 people, funnily enough, one girl was saying her flight actually left early so even if we had made it out on time, she missed it.
• 12:55
  Alicia: It was like, I find it hard to believe like our flight.
• 12:59
  Alicia: We only missed by 10 minutes, which means it was probably still sitting right there on the runway waiting to go.
• 13:07
  Alicia: How is it more economical for an airline?
• 13:10
  Alicia: To have to get new flights for all these people versus holding like one plane for 10 minutes.
• 13:16
  Alicia: Like I know they get fined if they don't run on time.
• 13:19
  Alicia: I don't know how steep it is, but I have had a airport employees tell me that they have to leave at a certain time or the longer they're there late, they'll get a larger fine, but I can't fathom that having to get, I ended up going on air Canada, WestJet rebooked me on air Canada.
• 13:33
  Alicia: So I was like, how is that?
• 13:36
  Alicia: Money or financial loss for you then holding that plane for 10 minutes,
• 13:41
  Meggan: it doesn't seem like it would make sense
• 13:44
  Jenn: No.
• 13:44
  Jenn: And like I've booked those flights.
• 13:46
  Jenn: Like when I flew to thunder bay in December, that's often what it is.
• 13:51
  Jenn: It's like a 50 minute.
• 13:53
  Jenn: Um, Connection with WestJet in Toronto.
• 13:56
  Jenn: And luckily, most of the times that I've flown the gates have been pretty close together.
• 14:02
  Jenn: So you're not like running from like one gate to another, but like, it is stressful.
• 14:10
  Jenn: Like it is really, really stressful.
• 14:13
  Jenn: And there's like a balance, like, do you want a 50 minute layover?
• 14:16
  Jenn: Or do you want like a five-hour layover?
• 14:19
  Jenn: Like, can you just give me two hours or something?
• 14:21
  Jenn: And
• 14:21
  Alicia: I will always book, if there is a direct option, I don't care if it costs me more money.
• 14:28
  Alicia: I am the person who wants to sit down and my ass doesn't come out of the seat.
• 14:37
  Alicia: It doesn't come out of the seat until I land.
• 14:39
  Alicia: I have no problem with that.
• 14:40
  Alicia: I fly to Alberta pretty regularly.
• 14:43
  Alicia: And man, I love that five and a half hour flight.
• 14:46
  Alicia: Never would I choose to get off in two hours, wait around and get it.
• 14:50
  Alicia: Never, I want direct all the way.
• 14:53
  Meggan: We are the same.
• 14:54
  Meggan: We are the exact same.
• 14:55
  Meggan: That's why when you're going to Germany, we haven't made it there yet, but when we get there, eventually I'm like, it is like just here to Frankfurt.
• 15:03
  Meggan: And I'm just like, that is what I'm talking about because it is, I don't want to have to think about the rest of it.
• 15:08
  Meggan: There's enough to think about when you're traveling that I don't want to have to think about a connection.
• 15:14
  Alicia: What's the longest flight either of you who've ever been on?
• 15:17
  Jenn: Um, I guess from a year to, no, he didn't fly direct to London.
• 15:24
  Jenn: We flew to Iceland.
• 15:26
  Jenn: For, so I guess probably just that, which I think is not that long.
• 15:30
  Jenn: Megan, how long was that flight?
• 15:33
  Meggan: I think it was like five and a half hours, five and a half.
• 15:36
  Meggan: I think the longest I have been is maybe Newark to barbados.
• 15:44
  Meggan: Um, It's a long way
• 15:48
  Jenn: Barbados is like down there.
• 15:51
  Jenn: Realize that long was from Newark to Barbados.
• 15:55
  Jenn: How long would that be?
• 15:56
  Meggan: I mean, that was a hundred years ago.
• 15:57
  Meggan: I can't remember.
• 16:01
  Meggan: Oh, I look so good.
• 16:03
  Meggan: I think it is a little bit longer though, than here I have flown here direct to Heathrow.
• 16:08
  Meggan: So if it, but I think barbados from Newark is probably seven something if I remember properly.
• 16:15
  Meggan: So yeah, I think it would be here, but yours must be LA to Sydney.
• 16:20
  Meggan: Would it be.
• 16:21
  Jenn: That's long.
• 16:22
  Alicia: Oh, and not, that is the last leg of that trip.
• 16:26
  Alicia: That is the worst part.
• 16:27
  Alicia: Like really tests the barriers of your humanity when you fly that long.
• 16:33
  Alicia: I'm not even kidding.
• 16:35
  Alicia: Like, cause I mean it, the way it's timed is pretty good.
• 16:37
  Alicia: Like you leave in the morning, by the time you leave LA it's like 10 o'clock at night, so you're exhausted.
• 16:42
  Alicia: You're ready to sleep.
• 16:43
  Alicia: And that's like, I think 13 hours from the point where you leave LA to land in Sydney and that's after flying like six hours across the country, a couple of hours before that.
• 16:54
  Alicia: So I feel like I have so many stories now ended up sitting.
• 16:59
  Alicia: I book the.
• 17:01
  Alicia: The emergency row on that size of plane.
• 17:03
  Alicia: I can't remember what class it is is actually like five feet in front of me.
• 17:08
  Alicia: I'm sitting in the middle row, middle of this row.
• 17:11
  Alicia: It doesn't matter cause there's nothing there.
• 17:13
  Alicia: And there has to be a, I'm going to say 300 pound Russian man sitting on the side.
• 17:19
  Meggan: Naturally
• 17:20
  Alicia: Right.
• 17:21
  Alicia: So I am delirious with travel.
• 17:23
  Alicia: At this point.
• 17:24
  Alicia: I need to sleep.
• 17:26
  Alicia: I for the first time take Benadryl to, I was like, I have to sleep at least as much as I can on this flight, or I'm going to lose my mind.
• 17:34
  Alicia: And this man snored so loud that it was louder than my earplugs than the roar of the engine of this massive plane.
• 17:45
  Alicia: And I am straight up out of my mind at this point.
• 17:48
  Alicia: Like I actually thought about stuffing my eye mask in his mouth.
• 17:54
  Alicia: And on top of that, I had convinced myself when I woke up, I was going to tell him you have a problem and you need to go to a doctor.
• 18:02
  Alicia: There's something really, really wrong in here.
• 18:07
  Alicia: Like, yeah, just in all around here, something's wrong.
• 18:10
  Alicia: There's something that's really wrong.
• 18:11
  Alicia: Something might be dead in there.
• 18:12
  Alicia: It crawled in, I don't know.
• 18:14
  Alicia: You have to go to a doctor.
• 18:16
  Alicia: It was horrible.
• 18:17
  Alicia: And the way back is even worse, because at least on the way down, you've got exhaustion on your side.
• 18:22
  Alicia: But when you leave to come back, you leave at like, I think it was mid-afternoon.
• 18:26
  Alicia: And then a few hours into that 13 hour flight, you hit the middle of the night and then you land in the morning of the day you left and you're just keep going.
• 18:37
  Alicia: It gets crazy.
• 18:38
  Alicia: It is crazy.
• 18:39
  Meggan: Oh my God.
• 18:40
  Meggan: Okay.
• 18:42
  Meggan: That's why we haven't gone to Australia yet.
• 18:44
  Meggan: It is.
• 18:44
  Meggan: We talked, we had a bucket list episode last week.
• 18:48
  Meggan: I think it was what is time and and Australia is definitely on mine.
• 18:52
  Meggan: And I think, I think it would test me and I think it would test Peter even more.
• 18:57
  Meggan: Like I, he can, he is he's he's he can't sleep in airports and he can't sleep on airplanes.
• 19:06
  Meggan: Probably he'll always have his jeans on, so you could do anything in those mostly.
• 19:14
  Meggan: Um, and yeah, like I think it would test him even more.
• 19:18
  Meggan: So it's one of those things like, A: I think you need a long time if you're going that far.
• 19:22
  Meggan: And B I think you need a lot of like mental preparation for that.
• 19:26
  Meggan: And we just haven't, we haven't gone down that road yet.
• 19:28
  Alicia: You absolutely do.
• 19:30
  Alicia: You were right on all of those things.
• 19:32
  Alicia: It is.
• 19:34
  Alicia: It is hard mentally.
• 19:35
  Alicia: And like, I think I read the entire hunger games trilogy on that, those trips.
• 19:40
  Alicia: I knit a baby blankets on that.
• 19:43
  Alicia: Like, I had everything with me that I could to occupy my mind because at the time, I don't know now because it's been so long, but the planes were the ones that just had that one little TV that's every three rows.
• 19:54
  Alicia: So it was like, and it was before Netflix, I think.
• 19:57
  Jenn: Right
• 19:57
  Meggan: So a hundred years ago as well.
• 20:01
  Alicia: Yep.
• 20:02
  Alicia: A hundred percent I'm sure.
• 20:04
  Alicia: But it was before we like carried it around on our tablets and stuff.
• 20:07
  Jenn: Yeah, definitely.
• 20:08
  Alicia: So it was like, now I feel like it would be better, but you really have to have a solid plan of how you're going to deal and entertain yourself for that, that much time.
• 20:18
  Alicia: Excuse me.
• 20:19
  Meggan: Yeah.
• 20:19
  Meggan: Talk about trip planning.
• 20:21
  Meggan: So much of it would have to do with that as well.
• 20:23
  Meggan: Like yeah.
• 20:24
  Meggan: It's a lot to undertake.
• 20:25
  Meggan: So it's good advice for the future as well.
• 20:28
  Meggan: And you're, we're eventually going to have to do it, but it it's a lot to think about.
• 20:33
  Alicia: I am living for Jenn going to Scotland.
• 20:35
  Alicia: Like I'm just waiting for that to happen.
• 20:37
  Jenn: So am I, so am I!
• 20:39
  Alicia: When is it again.
• 20:40
  Jenn: We leave on May 31st here and then get to Scotland on June 1st.
• 20:45
  Jenn: But so my best friend is getting married and my best friend lives in thunder bay.
• 20:48
  Jenn: So she is flying I her and her fiance flying thunder bay to Toronto, Toronto, to Halifax, Halifax, to Glasgow.
• 20:56
  Jenn: So we there's lots of potential for error there.
• 21:00
  Jenn: So fingers crossed it won't be winter.
• 21:02
  Jenn: So hopefully the gate thing, he won't be frozen, but we're all on the same flight over.
• 21:10
  Jenn: So me and my friends, parents and then my best friend and her fiance, we all meet up in Halifax and get on the same flight
• 21:17
  Alicia: See, that's great.
• 21:18
  Alicia: Even if you can have everybody, like, if you're not like stressed, Meeting people or flights getting the same time and that alone will help bring down a lot of the stress level.
• 21:27
  Jenn: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:28
  Jenn: Yeah.
• 21:28
  Jenn: And then we're going to actually split up in the beginning at like once we land in Glasgow Ryan and I are going to do our own thing.
• 21:34
  Jenn: Everybody's going to do their own thing for the first five days.
• 21:36
  Jenn: And then we meet on the isle of Skye for the wedding, the wedding's on the seventh, we get to Isle of Skye on the fifth.
• 21:42
  Jenn: So it's yes, we it's, it's really weird to have like, Planned like a big trip and we haven't done something like this for seven years.
• 21:53
  Jenn: So when we went on our honeymoon, so it's a lot, it's a lot to think about again, and this is our first time really traveling with.
• 22:02
  Jenn: Other people except we've gone with other people to Disney, but Disney is like a whole different traveling, planning experience than like European road trip.
• 22:12
  Jenn: But it is funny for us to be planning.
• 22:15
  Jenn: Like we had our trip entirely, basically mapped out on what we were going to do.
• 22:19
  Jenn: And then my best friend and her fiance and her parents were like, actually after the wedding, we're going to do this instead.
• 22:26
  Jenn: And they were our car.
• 22:27
  Jenn: At that point, we were.
• 22:29
  Jenn: Okay.
• 22:29
  Jenn: So we're switching gears and now we're doing our entire trip in reverse, which is totally fine.
• 22:34
  Jenn: But at least we didn't have anything booked,
• 22:37
  Meggan: really?
• 22:39
  Jenn: So, yeah.
• 22:40
  Jenn: So where we got all our hotels booked, we got all of your things.
• 22:44
  Jenn: Yeah, we just, I will feel so much better once I'm on that plane.
• 22:47
  Alicia: It's true.
• 22:48
  Alicia: I so often say that when people are like, are you excited?
• 22:50
  Alicia: It was like, I literally won't be relaxed, excited until the plane is pulling away from the gate.
• 22:57
  Alicia: Like, that's what travel has become.
• 23:00
  Meggan: Yeah, it is, it was like that before, but on a, in a different way, like then you're just like, okay, the excitement's really setting in, but now you just can't believe in anything.
• 23:09
  Meggan: You can't believe that it's going to actually occur.
• 23:12
  Meggan: So w w like we've planned this European trip we're going on almost the same time as Jenn three times.
• 23:19
  Meggan: And Peter's, it was like, I need you to know, I'm not planning this a fourth time.
• 23:22
  Meggan: Like, I'm just not, and I'm like, I'm cool with that.
• 23:25
  Meggan: This is our last shot, honey.
• 23:26
  Meggan: Let's see what happens.
• 23:28
  Alicia: Where are you going Meggan?
• 23:29
  Alicia: And
• 23:30
  Meggan: germany, Austria and Switzerland.
• 23:33
  Alicia: Oh my God.
• 23:33
  Alicia: That sounds amazing.
• 23:35
  Meggan: We'll see.
• 23:37
  Alicia: I know we have a trip, actually.
• 23:39
  Alicia: We're counting down the days now we're supposed to be going to the Dominican on March 22nd.
• 23:44
  Alicia: This is our third time trying to book it as well.
• 23:47
  Alicia: I, I won this trip in 2019 I know never had won a trip in my friggin life.
• 23:53
  Alicia: We went to the hospital gala fundraiser here.
• 23:56
  Alicia: I literally was waiting to leave.
• 23:58
  Alicia: I'm like, will you call this last ticket so I can get up and run out of here?
• 24:01
  Alicia: And he called my name.
• 24:02
  Alicia: I had my purse in my hand and was like, couldn't believe it.
• 24:06
  Alicia: We booked-
• 24:07
  Meggan: you caused the pandemic.
• 24:08
  Meggan: Is that what you're telling me?
• 24:11
  Alicia: That's a hundred percent where it started.
• 24:13
  Alicia: Sorry.
• 24:15
  Alicia: Send your hate mail below the, we are, we are going, we decided we were actually going to lose the trip if we didn't book it by April.
• 24:23
  Alicia: And I was like over my cold dead body.
• 24:26
  Alicia: Am I losing the only trip I have ever won?
• 24:29
  Alicia: So.
• 24:31
  Alicia: Settle in hon, we're going, I don't care if we ended up having to isolate when we get back, we are going.
• 24:36
  Alicia: So fingers crossed.
• 24:38
  Alicia: We'll be doing that in 43 days.
• 24:41
  Alicia: I think so far,
• 24:43
  Meggan: we look forward to that for you as well.
• 24:45
  Meggan: Like we all deserve it.
• 24:46
  Meggan: We just do
• 24:48
  Alicia: so right.
• 24:52
  Alicia: Vicariously live through each other,
• 24:55
  Jenn: basically where we're at now,
• 24:57
  Meggan: when I see people are traveling now and like you go, girl, you go boy, live that life.
• 25:01
  Meggan: I'm like so excited people
• 25:03
  Alicia: and share it openly on the internet, please.
• 25:05
  Meggan: Yes.
• 25:06
  Meggan: I need to see how the other half is living for sure.
• 25:09
  Meggan: Well, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule.
• 25:12
  Meggan: You have so much on the go on your life and we're so.
• 25:15
  Meggan: Blessed that you've joined us for like a second time.
• 25:18
  Meggan: So thank you for sharing your travel fails and stories with us.
• 25:21
  Meggan: We really appreciate it.
• 25:22
  Meggan: And yeah, like let's hope with these next three trips, we all have planned that nothing happens that we need to talk about like this.
• 25:29
  Alicia: Yeah.
• 25:29
  Alicia: None of us are bringing travel fails back from these trips.
• 25:33
  Alicia: Although Jenn when you said car in Scotland, it reminded me that I did rent a car when I was there and it ended up being a standard on the opposite side of the road with the opposite hand.
• 25:43
  Alicia: That wasn't a travel fail, but it definitely took years off my life.
• 25:46
  Alicia: There's no question
• 25:47
  Jenn: that had potential, yeah, we are very careful when looking at rental cars that it will be an automatic because I've never driven a standard in my life.
• 25:56
  Jenn: And not that I'll be driving in Scotland because I won't, Ryan will be doing all of that.
• 26:00
  Jenn: But he doesn't usually drive a standard either silver, like what's, I.
• 26:04
  Alicia: I really genuinely hope you get to drive like the country roads that are not the main roads, because I don't know how you feel about roller coasters, but that's, I imagine what it is like to ride one, like it's roadkill, you don't even know what it was because whatever hit it, obliterated it and you just know something died here.
• 26:23
  Alicia: It's so.
• 26:25
  Alicia: Fast and curvy and windy.
• 26:27
  Alicia: It is nauseatingly amazing.
• 26:31
  Meggan: The exact same.
• 26:32
  Jenn: Looking forward to.
• 26:36
  Jenn: Okay.
• 26:36
  Meggan: What road kill was that
• 26:38
  Alicia: Feather or fur?
• 26:40
  Alicia: I'm not sure.
• 26:42
  Meggan: Awesome.
• 26:43
  Meggan: Well, thank you so much, Alicia.
• 26:44
  Meggan: It was a pleasure to have you back.
• 26:45
  Alicia: Yeah.
• 26:46
  Alicia: So much.
• 26:47
  Alicia: And I can't wait to reminisce over all of our travels in 2022.
• 26:53
  Alicia: Bye.