Christmas Vacation

Happy New Years! I hope everyone had a nice Christmas and had an awesome party on New Years eve. I hope you all got my cards by now and I hope you liked it! Just as a side note; writing back IS allowed. I haven’t received a single card in all my time here, and in 2 days I’ll be celebrating 5 months in America!! No pressure though ;).

Vacation has been nothing less than awesome, amazing and unforgettable. It’s not even over yet, but after 2 weeks I already have more then you want to read to write about. St. John was absolutely the most beautiful place I have ever been and I can not believe my luck that I got to go there with my host-family. In mid December I was walking around in skirts and tank-tops, with underneath a bikini, because we were going to the beach every day. I heard that it snowed in the Netherlands, but in St. John I was getting a nice tan. The beaches were nothing like the Dutch beaches and even less like the ones in Bainbridge. Light, almost white sand, palm trees and the most beautiful clear blue water you have ever seen. My host-families house is on top of a hill and it had a great view of the Caribbean Sea and the rest of St. John.

Christmas day could not have been more different than what I’m used to. Although I feel very lucky and thankful that I could go to St. John, I really missed the old familiar Christmas I always had in the Netherlands. Where it has pretty much always just been me and my mom, and it was now me and my host-family plus a dozen other people I never met before. With a total of 18 people, including 6 kids, divided over 2 houses, it was quite crowded. Our Christmas tree was made out of 3 or 4 palm tree branches and the amount of presents underneath there on Christmas morning was amazing.. As a Christmas present I got to pick out a new winter coat, got a nice tank-top and a CD with all the songs from the TV-show Glee. Oh, and then of course there’s the whole trip to St. John, as if that alone wouldn’t have been more than enough.. In the evening we all had a big Christmas dinner together, which was very yummy. Why did I never eat turkey in the Netherlands?? Speaking of food, and quite apart from the subject, since I’m here I discovered surprisingly many things I do not like to eat. I guess having eaten mostly the same things most of my life, I never tried some of the things I’m trying here now. But now I know; artichokes, cranberry sauce, celery (specially uncooked) and ginger, not for me. Also there’s a range of American candy that is just inedible. Hersey’s and Reese’s are highly popular, but I think it’s about the worst thing I ever had.

Okay, back to vacation! On the 28^th of December I left St. John to go to L.A., the next big adventure. The day had started most beautiful, the ferry-ride to St. Thomas was amazing. At St. Thomas airport however, my flight to Atlanta was unfortunately delayed, and when I asked what time we’d be arriving they told me I had only 7 minutes to transfer. They were able to change my seat to an isle spot near the entrance/exit so I’d be able to get out as one of the first. The whole flight I stayed stressed out about the thought of missing my flight, and not wanting to be stuck in the airport overnight. Of course to make matters worse, upon arrival we had to wait for the stair thingy to come to the airplane and we were arriving in a different Gate area, further from my departing Gate. I ran as fast as I could possibly go, with a heavy hand-luggage bag, but by the time I got there they had stopped letting people on. The following 3 hours I could spend 3 pages writing about, but I’ll try to keep it short. I tried to figure out what the next flight would be and they told me I’d have to spend the night at the airport and I would only arrive in Burbank 21 hours later then I was supposed to. After asking, I got put on Stand-by for a flight to L.A.. I didn’t quite realize that the next flight was already in 40 minutes though, and with my mind on not-working, I walked first all the way to the end of Gate area B, then all the way back. Then I realized I had to hurry and went to Gate A, just before realizing that I had to be at the end of Gate E, and I had to run to get there in time. It was no use though, cause the plane was completely full, and even if there had been spaces there would have been a dozen people waiting before me. I called the Delta help line and asked what to do now and they referred me again to the flight the next day. When I asked them if I would have to pay for the hotel myself or if they would they had me wait for about 10 minutes before telling me that a hotel would be accommodated by them. Feeling this was at least some kind of relief I went to the Delta desk to claim my hotel voucher. However…! At the Delta desk the man who was supposed to give me the voucher suddenly had to make a bunch of mysterious phone calls and after that he asked why my flight had been delayed. I told him that the woman from the Delta helpline told me that something was late arriving to the plane, and then I also told him, laughing, that I had heard rumors that the president had arrived in St. Thomas that morning, and that that was the reason that my plane couldn’t take off. After which he kindly announced that Delta would not be covering my hotel because the president arriving was not Delta’s fault. There apparently was nothing about something arriving late the plane in the system, but there was something about a V.I.P. arrival.. Right or not, after hearing this something just sort of snapped. I started crying and I just couldn’t believe how unfair they were being. The man behind the desk kept telling me that he understood but that there was nothing he could do, which just made me more angry. Thirty seconds later another Deltra coworker was telling me to calm down and stop yelling (I wasn’t yelling! (that hard..)) or she’d call security. Haha, I could see my mom doing the exact same thing in the same situation and it made me very proud :p. So I calmed down a little, and they started looking at other options for me. Finally, - really finally after the longest time -, they told me they’d put me on standby for two other flights to L.A. that evening. I really wonder why they hadn’t done that before because I clearly said to multiple Delta people that I was happy to fly to LAX instead of Burbank, as long as I didn’t have to stay the night in Atlanta and arrive a full day later. THEN right at the end the Delta woman had the courage to say that it was kind of my own fault for only leaving 50 minutes transfer time during the holidays, I could have totally expected to miss my flight. This made me instantly cry again and I was able to “kindly” with my most angry face tell her “politely” that Delta itself came up with this plan and that she was pissing me off enormously. And then I was off to my next Gate again, waiting if I could get on. I must have called/texted about 5 of you people, because I was just so sad and I really needed someone to cheer me up. Luckily I finally got a hold of Daniela and talking to her really made me feel much, much better. Two hours later I was sitting as Standby for my third flight, I didn’t get on the second, and was talking to another family of 5 who was first to get on the flight if spots opened up. I was 6^th.. I don’t know if you can really call it luck after all the bad things that happened before, but miraculously 6 spots did open up and I got on the last flight to L.A.. At 4am my time, 12am L.A. time, I FINALLY arrived at LAX airport. My baggage was not with me, because it had not made it onto the plane in time, and it arrived to next day at Burbank airport. Rosanne and her host-mom came to pick me up and after a total 19 hour journey I made it to my final destination. Haha, sorry – that was not short at all.

Okay, this is already getting way too long so I’ll leave it here. Part 2 coming up soon! Should be fun cause I went to … and … and …! Haha! :D I’ll tell you later!