Day -3 - 04/Jan/24 - Flying to Santiago, Chile

 Our Alaska Airlines flight touched down on time at Atlanta and we quickly deplaned and made our way to the Plane Train which is Atlanta airport's underground people mover.  We arrived at the north satellite gate D5.  The train was packed until we reached the second to last stop, Terminal T, after which it was pretty empty.  We made our way to carousel 1 and past hundreds of US Army personnel headed somewhere.  Most did not seem to have any rank markings on their fatigues, but they were very disciplined.  We had about 30 on our flight alone.


We retrieved our luggage and found the Delta Airlines check in counter where we checked our bags and got our standby boarding passes.  We then made our way back to the South Terminal TSA pre checkpoint, cleared security easily and made our way back to the Plane Train for a trip back to terminal E.  At terminal E we stopped for a quick bite to eat (Arby's turkey sandwich), and we proceeded on to our gate E27.  After a short wait I received a message that we had two seats in row 49 (2nd to last row).  There were 26 seats left after our seat assignment.


We boarded the aircraft and some other passengers spotted the HAL logo on Angela's sweatshirt, and volunteered that they were on our cruise.  We had a short conversation with them and they were super excited that we would take a trip back to Antarctica so soon after having just done it in November.  We'll visit more with them on the ship as they are staying in Santiago for two days while we are headed directly to San Antonio for a couple of days before boarding the ship on Sunday.


Our departure was delayed for about 20 minutes as the crew worked out a seating dispute a few rows ahead of us.  While a gate agent got involved, the flight crew were a bit upset. The flight was good except for a number of long stretches of rough turbulence. We had a chicken dinner and then the lights went dim.  


I'm reading a historical account of life in the Middle Ages by William Manchester, and it's downright depressing.  I need to try and sleep as we are scheduled to arrive at 7am and it's 1:13am local time as I write this.  I didn't purchase the Delta internet as coverage only lasted until Panama.  Also the movie selection is not that appealing, so I'm listening to classical music and other music in an effort to fall asleep.  


Falling asleep essentially didn't happen but I'll pick up the story in tomorrow's entry.






Comments

  1. PeteJanuary 9, 2024 at 4:15 AM

    Are you reading "A world lit only by fire" Sounds interesting . You may enjoy "The Pillars of the Earth " by Ken Follett which is historical fiction and takes place in 12th century

    ReplyDelete

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