Monday morning, I was awakened at 6am by Heather banging on the phone, trying to get it to stop ringing for our wakeup call. I finally gave in and put on a different shirt. We packed up, checked out, and got a taxi to the airport. I was a little disappointed that we were flying something as bland as US Air, considering the many colorful alternatives offered in Miami, most of which I never knew existed, stuff like ‘Jamaica, Mon’, ‘\u00a1Airplanes Ole!’, ‘Air Ahoy’. We stopped for coffee:<\/p>\n
Me: Do you have a coffee menu?
\nImpatient Snack Bar Lady: American coffee.
\nMe: Can I get a cappuccino?
\nISBL: Latte.
\nMe: Ok, I’ll have a skim latte.
\nISBL (to ISBL 2): Caf\u00e9 con leche.<\/p>\n
At this point, my brain slowly ground to a realization: they had Cuban coffee, too. And to switch my order at that point would undoubtedly have caused an early-morning airport snack bar disruption of monumental proportions. I accepted my un-skim latte and skulked off to the gate. We sat, I wandered, we sat some more. We got on the plane and sat. We got off the plane in Charlotte, and had lunch in the crappy, smoky ‘Cheers’-themed bar, because, unbelievably, all the other restaurant options were worse.<\/p>\n
On the flight back to Minneapolis, I was irritated by every single person in the surrounding seats. This was mostly due to the exposed-nerve sensation caused by sleep deprivation, having to watch the US Airways videos for the fourth time in 36 hours, and the fact that the stale air dried my contacts, making me feel bug-eyed and fuzzy. The couple in the seats in front of us were eating a homemade lunch, pausing to make out every five minutes. The flight attendants (sporting festive-looking patriotic pocket bunting) were rolling the beverage cart up and down the aisle, bumping violently into the seats. Heather and I watched the first-class passengers delving into their cornucopia of gourmet snacks, then sadly accepted our dusty Snyder’s of Hanover Snaps (fat free for extra dryness!) and cups of ice.<\/p>\n
The old women across the aisle were a portrait of courage in the face of adversity, the kind of people whose every daily activity is a struggle against their natural ineptitude. Dorothy #1 rushed on the plane in a huff right before takeoff, loudly announcing, ‘Don’t ever, ever buy e-tickets!’ As for Dorothy #2, we were over Ohio by the time she managed to buckle her seatbelt. She surrendered her Snyder’s of Hanover Snaps (fat free!) to Dorothy #1, preferring to feast on fistfuls of pills from a giant plastic organizer instead, which I had no doubt she would still be struggling with when we landed in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
We decided that the pilot was the same guy who flew us from Miami, since he had the same taxi-ing style: speeding around the tarmac, taking corners so fast I was surprised the wingtips weren’t touching the ground. His landings were the only time I’ve ever experienced airplane whiplash; we bounced and nearly screeched to a halt, as if the runway was only 50 feet long. He flew over the heartland of America, executing 90 degree turns and near-barrel rolls. I wasn’t sure why, but I figured it was to give us all a really good view of the cornfields we’d soon be plummeting into. Thankfully, for my 30th birthday, death decided to pass me by. Just this once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monday morning, I was awakened at 6am by Heather banging on the phone, trying to get it to stop ringing for our wakeup call. I finally gave in and put on a different shirt. We packed up, checked out, and got a taxi to the airport. I was a little disappointed that we were flying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[182,501,183,124],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"geo":{"latitude":27.59114459999999979800122673623263835906982421875,"longitude":-80.34421539999999595238477922976016998291015625,"description":"South Beach, FL, USA"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Z5R-h","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/30th-birthday-in-miami\/sat-672003-part-one\/","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":0},"title":"My 30th Birthday in Miami, Part 1","author":"Jenni","date":"06.10.2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday afternoon, the day before my 30th birthday, Heather and I dragged our sleep-deprived asses to the airport and got on a plane to Charlotte, North Carolina. No, come back! It gets better, I swear. Our already late-night flight was delayed due to weather, so we spent four hours in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Miami for my 30th Birthday"","block_context":{"text":"Miami for my 30th Birthday","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/30th-birthday-in-miami\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/30th-birthday-in-miami\/sun-682003-part-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":1},"title":"My 30th Birthday in Miami, Part 2 (Getting a Tattoo on South Beach)","author":"Jenni","date":"06.10.2003","format":false,"excerpt":"We walked back to the hotel. Alex, who had finished a 12-hour shift at 8pm that day, headed directly to work for another 12-hour shift. Heather and I went upstairs and slept for two hours, then headed to brunch. I ate the best gardenburger in the universe. Or half of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Miami for my 30th Birthday"","block_context":{"text":"Miami for my 30th Birthday","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/30th-birthday-in-miami\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":877,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/key-west\/friday-9-23-11\/","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":2},"title":"Driving up the Florida Keys","author":"Jenni","date":"10.23.2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Friday morning, we got up and checked out of Azul Key West. We made a quick stop for Cuban coffee near the marina, then headed up the Keys toward Miami. It's a drive I've always wanted to make. It really didn't take anywhere near as long as I expected, nor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Key West"","block_context":{"text":"Key West","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/key-west\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2011\/10\/6182384069_22499e9e6d_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":307,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/las-vegas-for-kates-bday\/las-vegas-for-kates-birthday-sept-18-21-2009\/","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":3},"title":"Las Vegas for Kate’s Birthday","author":"Jenni","date":"09.30.2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Dan and Kate invited us to Las Vegas to celebrate her 30th birthday. How could we say no? (The entire Vegas photoset is here on Flickr.) Read from the beginning below, or jump to each day: 9\/18: friday 9\/19: saturday 9\/20: sunday 9\/21: monday","rel":"","context":"In "Las Vegas #5"","block_context":{"text":"Las Vegas #5","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/las-vegas-for-kates-bday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5009,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/copenhagen-berlin\/a-very-pleasant-trip-home\/","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":4},"title":"A Very Pleasant Trip Home","author":"Jenni","date":"09.4.2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Tuesday, it was time to head home. We got up at 5:30, which hurt a lot. We had a quick breakfast in the lobby, checked out, and rolled our bags over to the bus stop. We didn't have tickets (the buses are cash-only), so we crossed our fingers and hopped\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Copenhagen \/ Berlin"","block_context":{"text":"Copenhagen \/ Berlin","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/copenhagen-berlin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2016\/12\/29949734786_1fc72e55b1_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5133,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/jamaica-4\/jamaica-for-the-englands-10th-anniversary\/","url_meta":{"origin":17,"position":5},"title":"Jamaica for the Englands’ 10th Anniversary","author":"Jenni","date":"04.12.2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Kris and Orsi got married in Jamaica. Since we weren't there for their wedding, we obviously had to go for their 10th anniversary. They were there for a couple weeks in February, and we joined them toward the end of their stay, only overlapping by a couple days. We had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Jamaica #4"","block_context":{"text":"Jamaica #4","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/jamaica-4\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2017\/04\/32918019772_62a96cbb2c_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}