I had never liked travelling, I had always complained and wanted to go home. On the longer trips I would behave terribly in whatever we were going in whether it was a car or a train. Planes were the worst, I always happened to have a sinus infection when we flew, so I got nasty headaches. But this, this was going to be the worst traveling experience of my life.

We woke up around four or five, it was still very dark outside and none of us were fully awake. After making sure we had everything we needed,we all loaded into our car, a silver honda. My brother and I were jammed into the back with all the stuff. It was cramped and I was forced into an uncomfortable position between a suitcase and the window.

We arrived at the airport and and parked our car where it would stay for the next month or so. We entered through the front door and, after some hallways and a few stairs went through security without much trouble. We arrived at the dock only to find our flight was delayed for some time, the first of many inconveniences that we would experience. I had that excited and fearful feeling I usually got when doing something I didn’t want to or going on long trips. However, I settled in to play on my DS, and after a while, we finally got on the plane.

As it turns out, our flight was delayed another 30 minutes by weather in Atlanta, Georgia, where we would be landing next. This time, we stayed on the plane until the time was up, and we took off for Atlanta. About halfway through the trip, we were informed the was more bad weather and we would have to land for some time. After landing, we got off the plane only to find that the airport was barely bigger than the plane, there about four shops in the whole thing, and the main source of food, or rather food that interested me, was a vending machine. My brother and I settled in to watch a movie on my dad’s laptop. Luckily, around noon, someone bought pizza for us.
Some time later, we took off towards Atlanta. We arrived only to find out  we had missed all of our flights and had to book new ones. The next one, might I tell you, was MUCH later. No one was happy.

“We should just go home,” my brother whined.
“Honestly, I don’t think we are meant to go on this cruise,” replied my mom.
“I didn’t even want to come in the first place,” I announced, which of course awarded me with glares from the rest of my family.

We managed to get on a plane and fly to Chicago. I fell asleep halfway through, but was woken up by some turbulence when we were landing.  At the airport, we went to the next dock. I fell asleep because we still had a few hours left until our flight. I woke to find we still had time until the flight, so I stared at chicago from an airport window, it was grey and cloudy, around 5.

We got on the plane for France some time later. It was a mostly uneventful trip, as I slept most of the seven or eight hours of the trip and played video games  like galactica and pac-man with my brother on the screens on the backs of the seats in front of us the rest.

As we went to retrieve our bags we passed some soldiers, I being me at the time, was fascinated with them, one of them even said, “Bonjour.” However, me still being me I stuttered as a desperately tried to remember what that meant. We walked away We It was then that we realized that both our grandmothers bags were missing. After some searching, we realized we would be late for our flight and dashed to the gate. We managed to arrive at london and leave without problem, as far as we knew.

We arrived in Norway and showed our passports to the security guard. We were all relieved and exhausted to finally be done with flying until our return trip.We boarded a bus to go to the hotel where we would be staying, it was very late in the night and I could barely see anything out the window. We arrived and went to sleep almost before we got in our beds. In the morning, we basically woke up and went to go to the ship, we were supposed to have toured for a few days, but all the delays prevented that.

We got off the bus and looked at the ship, it was massive. After a long time waiting in line, we arrived at the desk where a man asked for my dad’s credit card. Unfortunately, we found out that his credit card had been lost or stolen sometime during the trip at London, as that was the only time my father left his backpack unattended. Luckily, after much conversation and long waiting, we managed to board the ship.

After so many hours of travelling and delays, I was ready to settle down and sleep for a few hours and, after exploring the ship, that's exactly what I did. I was just glad to be off a plane. After that experience, I really haven’t complained on long trips. Whenever I feel like I am going to, I just remember that trip and that terrible chain reaction of planes and delays.