January 6

Wow today was rough.  We started out in Jax, but out plane was severely delayed from the winter storm so our 12pm flight didn’t leave until after 5pm.  We had JAX: SJU: SDQ: SJU and finished around 1:30am.

On the SDQ:SJU flight, we had a lady sitting in the front of the plane who was knocking on deaths door.  She kept moaning the whole flight, had bruises all over her, and had to sit on a pee pad.  When we got to SJU at 1:30am, the ground crew did not have a straight back wheel chair (the ones that fit down the aisles of the plane), so they were trying to carry the lady.  After about 20 minutes of them trying to figure out what to do, I grabbed the on board wheel chair to help get her off.  Apparently, it’s common for people to send almost dead relatives from SDQ to SJU because it’s cheaper to buy a plane ticket than to send them over once dead.  Still, I can’t believe she was traveling alone.

In customs, I was almost arrested.  It was a scene like something from Meet the Fockers.  Totally weird.  Usually, customs lets the crew go through first because they know we come through so often.  In San Juan, the crew shares the line with the wheelchairs and the wheelchair ‘pusher guy’ literally ran to beat us to the line.  Something was wrong with getting the lady through customs, because we stood there for what felt like eternity.  Our entire plane of 100 people made it through customs and our crew of 4 was still standing in line.  So I decided to jump on the end of the passenger line.  Everyone else makes it through customs and I’m finally at the front when the customs agent says “are you crew?”, well yes I am.  And then proceeds to scream at me “get back in the crew line!  Passengers come first!”

“Sir, there is no one else here but us!”

“Get back in the crew line!  You think you’re important but here, the passengers come first!”

I look behind me and around me, then back at him “There is no one else here but us!  There are no passengers!”

He keeps screaming at me and I’m getting increasingly irritated until my Captain says, “don’t play his games, just come back over in line with us.”  So I did.

As so as I walked back into the crew line, the same Jerk customs agent starts calling us from the crew line!!  Are you kidding?!  And guess who’s line I have to walk through?  The jerks.  He starts going off on me again and I keep giving it back to him, until eventually I’m able to make myself shut up.  I was so frustrated.

So it’s 2am and we’re standing outside the airport, exhausted and pissed off.  The hotel shuttle isn’t there and is going to be like another 30 minutes to arrive.  Our Captain grabs a cab instead and we finally head off to the hotel.  What a long, miserable day.  Now 8 hours of rest and we’re back at it tomorrow.  Ugh.