Day Twenty One and Epilogue

6/18 - Yeah! Last day I have to wake up and know I won't see V! Woohoo! Today was the closest we came to a mutiny and to Lord of the Flies-ing one of our own. Originally it was supposed to be a free day where people could do some last minute shopping and see the sites they hadn't been to yet. Instead, somehow we had two new lectures scheduled that were required and not going to let us out until late. (We ended up finishing at 5. Bad news...) So everyone was running on a really short fuse and extremely cranky, myself included. (I had already seen everything I wanted to and bought all my presents (surprise), but even I was looking forward to just lounging around and taking it easy. I was super tired and not looking forward to sitting in class for hours being fed the same line, that's for sure. Besides, class was supposed to end last Friday. We graduated and got wasted with our professors! Are you telling me that meant nothing?) Anyway, so that's the mood everyone was in. EXTREMELY irritable and cranky.

Our morning session was a trip to the National Assembly of the People's Power, essentially their Congress, to meet with a minister. It was more of a Q&A session than a lecture and it went really well -- learned a little about the electoral process, talked about racial representation, etc. pretty interesting. After that we went to lunch at La Domenica, a nice, fancy-schmancy restaurant in Habana Vieja where I ate three fish -- I’ve been identified as the human disposal by the girls of the group here, too. It’s inevitable. After this I skip off to the city's history museum, which covers the colonial period (it's the building with the wooden street in front, cut to look like bricks, so the horses wouldn't disturb the president I mentioned before -- remember?) for a quick buzz through before the afternoon session.

The mood at lunch was bad, worse on the bus, and downright toxic by the time we get to the Cuidad Escolar Libertad, the old military barracks and house of Batista that is now their educational complex for people of all ages. (There’s six different schools with nineteen other vocational centers, including the pedagogical institute that we're visiting.) We’re here to meet with the teachers learning to teach and have been repeatedly instructed to let the ed people in our group ask their questions so they can get stuff for their research and so we can get in and out. Instead, my dumbfuck roommate mucks things up and takes the entire time with his stupidity. This enrages the two ed people who haven't had many opportunities to do research and he was seriously lucky to escape the room and especially the bus, without getting his ass kicked, chewed out, or both.

I come back to the hotel and go on a long run to blow off steam, come back and take a shower (STILL no hot water -- I’m going to molest V’s shower almost as much as I do her. Almost...), and feel MUCH better by the time we go to dinner. First the Cuban Five (my four pals from this trip are Mona, Pam, Ben, and Noah and I’m sure I’ve mentioned them a million times thus far, but wanted to give them a clarifying prop before the end -- hopefully we can hang out at school 'cause I really think they're great. Avi-Mougeh quality.) go around the corner for a drink and to talk politics (so much fun! I’m such a dork.) before a detachment goes up the street to the Nacional one last time for a good meal at the Barraca (cerdo cimarron -- oh, so good) and some great mojitos and guarapos con ron. It was great to say goodbye to the Nacional, just relaxing outside looking out over the water, drinking and talking. It is a gorgeous hotel and we had a great time in it. Hopefully V and I can come back some day...

Then all five of us reassemble (we’re like Voltron!) and bop off to Montserrate, my favorite bar in Havana, for our last cigars and our last dose of great live music, before coming back to the hotel and turning in. What a great night. Wow. A perfect way to say goodbye to Havana. Fantastic. Well, I’m turning in for the last time, knowing that when I wake up I will get to see V at some point in the day (I will call this part of the day, "the best part of the day" 'cause it undoubtedly will be.) Hasta…

Author's note: so all that talk about knowing I was going to wake up and see v the next day turned out to be complete and total bullshit thanks to American Airlines, the company apparently run by as incompetent a bunch of imps as is currently running our country. We got up early, packed up the bus and actually left the hotel on time (que increible!!!), got to the airport and through security with hours to spare, and killed the time to our flight by watching the euro cup match between the Netherlands and the Czech republic. Our flight out of Cuba left without a hitch, on time and incident. (This was a nice surprise as the prof had told us flights off the island are typically delayed for hours at a time without any good reason.)

We touched down in Miami a few minutes early, got our bags and rechecked in for the evening flight without a problem, said a few goodbyes, filled our gullets with the most delicious whopper value meal I think I’ve ever enjoyed (hello, Dr Peppah! oh how much I missed ya!) and go to the gate for our 8PM departure time. My flight goes into BWI, my friends' flight goes into Reagan, but they're both supposed to leave at the same time, the only reason I opted for BWI was because it was sixty or seventy bucks cheaper to do so. I will rue this decision like I would if I’d invested in oil shale in the 70s by the end of the night. Stay tuned for why.

So we show up at the gate and our flight has been pushed back for a half hour. No prob -- heavy lightning while we were in the air before in had pushed all flights back, so everyone was a little slow in getting out. No big deal. 8:30 comes and the guys going into Reagan get to start boarding their plane. No word from our attendants. This is slightly suspicious. My first "uh oh" moment of the night. Ten, fifteen minutes go by, still no word. The other plane is completely boarded by now and we still haven't moved. Finally they come over the PA and start boarding us.

We get on the plane, everyone stows their bags, finds their seat, overhead bins are shut, we're all set to go. Except nothing happens. They don't close the door and don't say anything. We sit there for five, ten minutes. Nothing. A few more people trickle onto the plane, smiling at their good fortune for being late on a day when the plane is slow to leave and thus still able to get on the flight. Another ten, fifteen minutes pass with no word. Then the captain comes on the intercom and says we're waiting to leave because there's "a discrepancy with one of the engines." great. I have no idea what that means, but it sure doesn't sound good. Everyone kind of grimaces and looks at each other trying to discern exactly what the fuck that means. ("Benign? What does that mean? Is that the bad one?")

Another ten minutes or so pass before the captain comes back on and says that the maintenance crew is working on it and trying to find out what the discrepancy is and whether they can fix it for our flight or not. He’ll be back to tell us what they find as soon as he can. Another fifteen pass before he comes back on and says the maintenance crew is still working on it but has had to go check the manual to find out exactly what the error code means. Great. Not only do I like engine problems a ton when I’m about to fly, I especially like EXOTIC engine problems. Ones that nobody on the crew has ever seen before. The type of stuff that they can barely say, let alone spell and solve. Wonderful.

Another twenty minutes pass by before the captain comes back on. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, the maintenance crew thinks they've figured out how to solve the problem, but they've had to leave the runway because there's lightning in the area. As soon as the lightning clears out they can resume working on the plane, but until that time we're just going to have to sit here and wait for things to lighten up." awesome. So we sit. And wait. And wait. For the rain to stop. And for the lightning to leave. And finally it clears out -- the maintenance crew can resume their troubleshooting! And, rejoice! They think they've fixed the problem and are going to start the engine to run some tests just to verify. (It’s always good to double and triple check the efficacy of your repairs, even on superfluous, ancillary systems such as propulsion and braking.)

So the engine fires up, runs for a few minutes -- sounds good! Sounds like an engine, full of sound and fury. Roar! But Shakespeare was right -- damn that prescient bastard! -- it signified nothing. "Um, well, ladies and gentlemen, I have some good and bad news. Good news is you're going to get to get up and walk around a bit. The bad news is it's because they weren't able to fix the engine and we have to deboard the plane."

Sweet. So two hours have passed and I’ve got nothing to show for it except for a mushrooming sense of frustration and fatigue and an ass that has no sensation (but it still is an ass that's sensational -- YEAH!) so we disembark the plane and the captain tells us that there's a plane that just got in that we can use, so all that needs to be done is for that plane's passengers to deboard, the flight attendants to clean off the plane, and for us to get on. All in all, with the luggage that has to be moved from our plane to the new one, it should take no more than an hour. (This would make for a roughly 11:30PM departure time.) So we mill around the gate area, watch the people get off the other plane, watch our attendants get on board, ostensibly to clean up shop, watch them come off again, and...and...and nothing. Ten minutes go by, ten more, nothing's coming out of the attendants at the desk. People start congregating around the desk, increasingly cranky, and asking them what the hell is going on. People start acting like heroes, DEMANDING to be told what is happening -- said with your chin tucked in, finger wagging in the air, and chest puffed up like a presenting rooster -- and its starting to get ugly when they let the people around the desk know, well, everything is set to go -- the plane is clean, devoid of passengers and luggage, our luggage is off the old plane, but there's no one around to load it back onto the new one. Seems like the runway crew has gone home for the night as it’s getting close to midnight. Awesome.

This sets of ripples of anger and headshaking -- it is rather ridiculous, I must admit. -- and things get nastier and nastier. People are shouting at the attendants and demanding to know their names, the names of their managers, the number to call to complain, demanding free tickets to TaipeI and back for themselves and their entire support network (pets included), demanding to be told what is going on, etc. and finally they do -- well, we finally got someone here to load the plane with your luggage and they're doing it now (yay!), but in the time it has taken for this to happen, the crew has gone over the number of hours it has served and is now illegal to fly. So we have no crew. WOOHOO!

So they tell us that they're going to try to scramble a crew to fly the new plane, but it's not looking good. It’s past midnight now and people are getting REALLY upset. Everyone is tired and sick to death of being at the MiamI American Airlines gate and just wanting to go home -- to a hot shower, the first in a week, and a warm, comfy bed, the first in three, for some of us. People are barking more and more at the attendants -- I want a hotel! I want a car back to my house! I want free floor tickets to the Lakers! And then two cops on bikes ride up to the gate to escort the flight crew off the plane. Insane! Even more insane is that people boo and hiss -- HISS! -- at them as they walk by. These people are fucking crazy.

Finally they tell us that they've found a crew (yay!), they should be here by 12:30 (yay!) and then we can take off and go home (YAY YAY YAY!!!) so I ask them, since I’ve long since sent v home from the airport (she had been there since 10, eager and ready to pick me up as scheduled), if I can get transportation home from the airport when we arrive in Baltimore. Sure, no problem! Let me punch some things into the computer and you'll be all set. Just tell them where you need to go when you get there and it will be no problem.

Awesome. So I’m starting to feel good about things. They were a little dicey there for awhile (ok, a lot dicey), but things are looking good now. The crew shows up on time, we start boarding the plane up, take off without delay, and I pass out almost the instant my ass hits the seat, sleeping through the entire two and a half hour flight. I wake up just before landing -- it's now close to five in the morning -- go downstairs, pick up my bag, talk to the attendant and get her to print me this voucher for a ride home. I take it, rush outside, show it to the guy working the curb -- am I in the right spot to use this? -- yep, you sure are, so I stand and wait, five people back, for my ride home. Ten, twenty minutes pass with no ride. Why? Because there are no cabs here ready to take anyone home. They have to call the companies and have them scramble some cars to the airport to take us home. This takes another ten, twenty minutes before anyone shows up and finally some arrive and begin to take people home. Yay! I move up one, two, three places in line. The guy comes back down the line, asking us where we're going -- DC, Cleveland Park -- he jots it down on his pad, another ten or twenty minutes pass, another cab comes, I move up again, another ten, another cab, I move up.

It’s now been close to an hour and I’m next in line. The guy comes back down the line, asks to see my voucher, I show him and he says, this is going to take you to Reagan. I say, no, I told the lady I need to go to Cleveland Park. She said, ok, and punched the shit into the computer. And the guy says, well, she must have goofed up cuz this says you're only cleared to go to Reagan, so that's where the cabby is going to take you. I say, well I don't need to go to Reagan, I need to go home. Cleveland Park is home, not Reagan FUCKING AIRPORT! And he says, calm down, just go talk to the lady and she'll print you up a new one. And I say, well do I have to wait in line again? I’ve been here for over an hour. (The line behind me has now grown in size and now stretches, twenty or so deep, out of sight.) He says, unfortunately, yes. Upon which is feel like screaming and barely am able to fight back the tears. I am utterly exhausted, I feel like shit, and all I wanted to do is shower, see v, and sleep. Now it's looking like I’m not going to be able to do any of those any time soon.

I decide rather than start from scratch, I’ll take my chances with my effed up voucher and see if I can get the driver to take me where I really need to go. Finally, an hour and twenty minutes later, the car finally shows up -- thanks for having the transportation ready for us, you American Airline dumbfucks. I know how hard it is to pick up a phone to make sure things are set when we touch down while the plane full of much-delayed passengers is sitting in the air. God knows we're not pissed off already or anything. What am I saying? I should be reasonable. They did only have two and a half hours to remove their thumbs out of their asses to act! RRRR!!!! I throw my stuff in the back, the driver says it's no problem, he'll take me where I need to go, and an hour later -- it is now roughly 7:30 in the morning, a good 11-plus hours since I started dealing with American Airlines and Miami -- I arrive home, the final indignity being the driver, who upon getting my last six dollars from me in the form of a tip, says thanks, but the ride actually costs fifteen since you didn't go where you were supposed to go. The look on my face probably said all that needed to be voiced -- things like, well, that sucks, but you can take it up with American Airlines, you never said anything about that when I got in, and if you want any more money out of me, you're going to have to pry it out of my dead fucking hands because I’m not giving you another penny and if you want to keep fucking with this tired, EXTREMELY irritable traveler he's going to introduce you to a brand of ass-whooping the likes of which have never been seen on this planet -- as he slowly makes his way back to the car, gets in, and drives away. I drag my beaten ass inside, haul my battered body up the stairs and collapse on the bed, for some direly needed showering and sleep. I have to go to bed one more time without seeing v, but this time I know for sure that when I wake up I will be able to see her at some point during the day. Sure enough I see her shortly after I awake and spend the next week virtually attached to her hip. Quite an adventurous way to end the trip, wouldn't you agree? Hasta...