Deja Vu

Have you ever had one of those days where you felt like you have already lived it before? Well I had one of those days, except, unfortunately I HAD lived it before. But there were some subtle differences like:

I was able to get my sweaty paws on the new Harry Potter book before it was released in the United States.

Everybody on my plane arrived at the airport at the same time.

400+ people got to cut in front of the line.

Everyone was slightly punchy and a little smelly.

Ahhh, my do it all over again day, Leaving China part deux. It went really smoothly! The airline did everything it could to make it as easy as possible for us to try it again. They paid for our hotel and transportation, gave us food vouchers and upon arrival at the check-in counter, they gave us each a "Friendship Package" - in other words, "My bad. Fill this out and we'll give you a free ticket so you don't hate us too much." All went good at the re-check in, they had to book me on a different airline for my trip from Chicago back to the Twin Cities, then we get to go through immigration and security AGAIN! Argh! The most tedious line waiting time of them all. I don't know how many times I had to listen to the new regulations regarding liquids you plan on carrying on the airplane.

This time I was stopped by security - do I have any liquids. No. Am I sure? Yes. Are I sure that I don't have any liquids? Ummm, wait!!! I pulled out my contact case that had the most miniscule amount of saline left in them. She looked at me and gave me the international "are you serious?" look and waved me through.

Right.

Next - computer out, pockets empty, walk though the arch. Done. At least in China I didn't have to take off my shoes. Then I found myself with some time to kill. Hmmm...I had spent all of my money the day before so I decided to try to see about spending my food vouchers. Hello Starbucks!

Okay, so blah, blah, blah, wasting time in the airport. Blah, blah, blah, reading Harry Potter. Blah, blah, blah, talking to some of the people on my plane to make sure we were all in the right place. Well eventually we all shared why we were in China. So I told my warm and fuzzy, I'm a volunteer exclaimation point story. After hearing that I hadn't been home in two years, they officially started the "Let's get The Unsinkable Molly Brown Home" club. Which didn't really have any actual benefits besides being able to cut in line and extra cake at meal times, but it was all good. I amused them with my tales about my time in China and they fed me cake. I think it was an equal trade off.

Right before we took off I overheard one of the air hostesses talking about the engine failure she said, "Yeah, I think they should just retire the 747. I mean, pieces of the planes are just falling off all of the time." -uncomfortable silence- "I mean, not this plane, this one has been checked over, but you know what I mean." Awesome. "Pieces of the planes are just falling off all of the time." What a nice little tidbit right before we take off.

When we took off there was a nice cheer as we took to the skies, again. I was happy that most of the people on the flight were pretty well humored about the situation and in a way it made us a more jovial bunch. We weren't holding hands and singing our faves from the Sound of Music or anything, it was just more friendly feeling. It was fun.