For two nights in a row, the both of us had restless sleep, anxious for M2’s journey. The flight was delayed in Doha, hence the anxiety for us.
Apparently, the runway was closed but no further details were provided for the passengers. And after a four and a half hours delay, the flight finally took off.
Well, she has finally arrived safely after the long and tiring journey, and has checked into the dorms, ready to start her two-weeks quarantine.
M2 flew off yesterday evening. My heart was heavy, and there were tears, mostly mine when I hugged her ever so tightly. The time has come to let her go, now that her college is ready to welcome back returning students.
We arrived at the airport early and waited for a bit before the check-in counters opened. Most of the passengers were young adults, students like M2, returning to their respective universities.
The airport was not a bustling hive of activity like the pre-pandemic days. The place looked gloomy. The ever-popular KFC and McDonald’s were shuttered since 18 March, the start of the nation lockdown phases. So unfortunate.
M2 arrived in Doha early this morning and in transit for the next flight. We managed to talk to her just only. She’s in good spirits despite feeling tired from a lack of sleep and having to wear a face mask and face shield provided by Qatar Airways throughout the journey.
We will be more at ease once we hear from her again the next time from Dublin.
It has been six months that M2 came back from Ireland at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic mayhem. And it was a good six months with her around; the house is not so big and empty.
But sadly, all good things must come to an end. Time has flown by so fast, and it is time for her to return to Ireland for her studies.
While we are worried about her journey, there are many precautions and SOPs taken by the airlines and airports to ensure a safe journey for every traveler. So we should be comforted by these new norm practices.
I will, as always, track her flight on flightaware.com and being unable to sleep through the night until I know she has arrived safely on campus. A mother’s worry is constant regardless of how old a child is.
She leaves on Sunday evening. Sniffles.
M1 has arrived safely this morning after a long but on time flight. So the adventures of her food trail officially ended on Sunday with an early dinner before leaving for the airport that night. With the end of the food trail, this means no more constant heavy meals for us except for several upcoming Chinese New Year-related dinners with friends that have been pre-arranged earlier. We have gone back to the 16/8 diet routine immediately, kicking it off with a salad lunch yesterday.
Bak Kut Teh with two sides was a good farewell dinner choice
Contrasting the meat-based dinner, lunch the next day was just fiber and more fiber
The big question I’m sure that must be on everyone’s mind, did I gain weight? Of course I did! How could I not when the eating window was switched to 16 hours and the non-eating window reduced to eight hours or less, three quarters of which was being asleep. So essentially there was very little time in between for a meal to be fully digested before the next meal.
There were nights when I fretted to step on the bathroom scale knowing the numbers I’d see would not be pleasant. But I took it in stride because I knew the situation was temporary and it won’t last long.
There were several times when the weight climbed steadily upwards, it was rather horrifying. However the numbers fluctuated when we ate less; I even managed to squeeze in a couple of salad lunches to lessen the guilt. Thankfully, yesterday morning when I stepped on the bathroom scale, the final result was somewhat comforting for I had expected it to be more. I gained only a kilo (2.2lbs) which wasn’t too bad considering it did spiked up more than that!
I’m sure within a week, this gain would be erased and the 16/8 continues until when Chinese New Year comes around, a new round of festive eating to indulge in!
Yesterday the bags were finally delivered, at 9.55pm! It was a long day for us waiting for them and the bags, I supposed for their delay and ‘adventure’.
I must say, the last three days I wasn’t overly stressed over our delayed bags. Sure there was some anxiety initially because of the unknown and no updates. But soon after, there was confidence that KLM would sort it out. It was just a matter of time.
For such a global airline, KLM was very approachable when they responded to my queries rather quickly in my opinion. They had many channels to be contacted: Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, email, WhatsApp and Customer Contact Centre.
I chose WhatsApp because to me, the other platforms were either too worldly or corporate and not personal enough. The key here is being approachable rather than professional and I am glad I chose this channel.
The exchanges with KLM on WhatsApp helped bring them down to a more personal level and faster too, giving a lot more reassurance than email, which I used with a regional airline in April and they responded a day later.
Lessons learned here: always label your check-in bags (which we did), buy travel insurance (which we did too and will claim for the delay), make full use of the best and fastest communication platform to stay informed thus, avoiding stress and have a positive attitude towards the situation, it helps.
The perils of jet lag continues! Waking up at 5.30am yesterday morning not for golf but due to jet lag seem to have clouded my senses.
I misinterpreted the information on the status of our bags as stated on the website that KLM provided. Bag One will leave Amsterdam Schiphol Airport on 2nd July, not arrive at KLIA on the said date. And the airport baggage claims office called yesterday evening to confirm this.
What this means then is that Bag One will arrive on 3rd July, today and delivered to us in the evening. Haish…
Meanwhile up till yesterday, Bag Two was still being traced. Dear oh dear…
Work and worry took the toll on me and last night, I crashed at 9.30pm; I couldn’t hold up and brave the anxiety anymore. And this morning I woke up at 3.30am. I’m not complaining though because there was a text message from KLM saying Bag Two is currently being transported to KUL! Yay.
I checked the website and indeed, Bag Two was labeled ‘Rushbag’ and on flight KL809 en route to KLIA. I hope it’s the same flight as Bag One.
We hope to receive both bags this evening. Fingers crossed.
Yesterday evening fighting jet lag, we waited in vain for our bags to be delivered. It was exasperating to call the airport and put on hold until the line went dead. Eeesh…
We checked Delta’s website—as we checked-in at their counter and our KLM flight codeshare with them—and the status showed the last entry being ‘Bags removed planeside at SLC’. What did this mean? They never left Salt Lake City? But we were told they were stuck in Amsterdam! Gulp.
So using the power of social media, I messaged KLM directly on WhatsApp last night and they responded in less than an hour. Pretty good. They gave me a new site to check which I did. And status showed ‘Tracking continues and to check later’. Hmm… at that point, it was getting late and the body couldn’t hold up anymore, what else can we do but sleep?
This morning, I woke up at 5.30am unable to sleep anymore. And I checked again. There’s some progress – the same website showed one bag, not both, is on the next flight in. As we did only one PIR (Property Irregularity Report) for both bags, how come status indicated only one bag coming in? Is it not necessary to indicate both? Hmm… not very reassuring I thought. I queried KLM this morning and they responded after an hour and a half. The second bag is still being traced! Goodness. But there’s no need for another PIR.
A quick counter check on flightaware.com showed the aircraft departed but was late. And Schiphol itself is experiencing a lot of delays, an average of 43 minutes for arrivals and one hour three minutes for departures.
We were just there on Sunday and our departure was delayed 24 minutes; I thought it was the inconsiderate dude (whom the Captain did announce to everyone) who came onboard late. But it’s actually more technical than that with the delays at such lengths for inbound and outbound.
Well, looks like we have to hang on again tonight to receive bag one of two coming home. Stay tuned for the adventures of Bag Two.
It’s mind boggling when I look back now at the total time of the whole journey inclusive of the car rides. So from the time we left Corvallis for the airport, the flights, transits and our taxi ride home, it was 43.5 hours! Goodness gracious me.
The delay of the bags added to this and it could have been worse if the delayed flight departures were longer. But being under half an hour each time, the flying itself made up for it.
Yesterday when we touchdown at KLIA, all I was thinking of was a nice cold shower and a good sleep to start my recovery from the jet lag. But our checked-in bags never arrived. With this clouding our minds, how to sleep snugly?
We stood at the baggage conveyor belt for more than half an hour and our two checked-in bags never came. They are still in Amsterdam, along with the bags of several other travelers who transited at Schiphol Airport.
Some of them were connecting from Paris and Japan, and us from the US. Like them, we lodged a report and this took time too as the office was packed. Initially I thought we had to go to the airport this evening to get them but hubby said they will be delivered to us instead. I await anxiously for them.
This morning I woke up at 6.20am. I had a good eight hours sleep with four and a half of it being deep sleep. That’s good, maybe a faster recovery but the nagging headache is still there, I don’t know why. Hubby on the other hand, woke up every two hours. He said he was still in airplane sleep mode and each time, he was expecting to be served a meal or ice cream! Hahaha…
We jumped right into work this morning, not wasting any time to rest.
There’s always something about the return journey compared to the initial arrival one. The traveling hours are about the same or sightly longer but the woes seem to be different.
When we first arrived in the US three weeks ago, the next day upon arrival I had recovered from the jet lag. The same can’t be said for returning to Malaysia for sure.
I recall our 2012 US trip, I took a week to recover from the jet lag. Now, seven years later, a week too or longer? Hmm…
Maybe the fact that we are returning from a holiday – back to reality, makes it hard for the body to accept, thus longer to readjust.
In the meantime, I was hoping to sleep 18 hours throughout when we arrive home but I cannot do so because our checked-in bags never arrived at KLIA! Haish…
Looks like recovery sleep has to be shortened to return to the airport tomorrow as our report has been done and bags should arrive by then to be collected.
All that sitting and inability to find a snug position on the second leg had caused my backache to flare up. Throughout the journey, I had my painkiller on standby but I tried not to resort to them.
The last three hours of more sitting and waiting in Schiphol was just so arduous. And we didn’t want to walk too much too as we had the backpacks to carry and the cabin bags to pull along. We both knew it will just tire us and most likely we can’t sleep well on the third leg of the journey.
By 8.00pm, the announcement came on for boarding and in an orderly fashion, passengers boarded when their zones were called out. We sat in the aircraft for a good 40 minutes or so because of one late inconsiderate dude to come onboard. Eventually we were cleared for take off, 24 minutes passed the scheduled 8.50pm.
Within an hour, dinner was served! And after the meal, I tried to sleep again and it wasn’t easy. I just couldn’t get any comfortable positions. So I watched a movie and a couple of documentaries but not long enough to kill time. We still had over five hours to go. Felt like forever. Oh my body!
Eventually I forced myself to sleep. After all, I was wedged between two people this time, I couldn’t get up and the aisle passenger was asleep. Then I had to pee. Oh dear…
Do I wake her? It wouldn’t be polite because she was in deep slumber snoring away. Hubby too was sound asleep against the window. Hmm…I shouldn’t go pee and tried to sleep instead as my eyes were tired. I think I managed two hours at most and not more. And it made matters worse.
The legs were sore, the back hurt, the butt numb and the shoulders stiff and I still had to pee. As if these problems were not enough, a tiny nagging headache started developing. Oh my body…
Remarks