Our 13th anniversary will certainly go down in the books as our strangest yet. We spent the day on a cross-country flight to Boston with our kiddos. Romance to the extreme, am I right?! The trip turned in to quite the “adventure” and ended with us eating CEREAL for dinner at 1:00am! After yesterday’s cereal anniversary post, I just had to laugh! Here are the highlights (or low lights?) of our totally bizarre anniversary:
– We arrived at the airport to check in and learned our seats were not together. They were actually in 3 separate rows, meaning Isla was expected to sit in a row by herself. Uhhh… ? After some juggling, Isla and I were able to sit together, but Isaac was 5 rows ahead with Cole on his lap.
– We endured one of the scariest landings of our lives. There was a huge storm off the coast and we flew through part of it during our descent. Lightning flashed outside the windows, and the plane was bouncing and lurching from side to side. Not fun at all.
– Mid-way through all the turbulence I heard Cole begin to cough and cry. Knowing how easily this kid gets carsick I realized he was airsick. I immediately began panicking for Isaac and envisioning the worst as Cole vomited everywhere.
– By some miracle Cole didn’t throw up–although Isaac informed me there were some juicy burps– and then he fell asleep immediately upon landing. A huge shout out to our amazing pilot who handled that terrible weather so skillfully and got us on the ground safely. We are so grateful!
– The rental car place offered to upgrade us to a mini van for free. Thinking about the extra space, we decided to go for it. Clearly we forgot about the fact that we’d be driving around a busy city with super narrow roads and very tight parking spaces. The minivan was a bad choice.
– We made our way through the pouring rain and poorly-lit roads to our Airbnb, a cute little apartment in a great part of the city. En route we stopped at a drug store to get milk for Cole and stock up on snacks.
– We arrived to our Airbnb sometime after 11:30pm. We were met with row after row of identical buildings, the wind and rain were still blowing around like crazy, and we were struggling to find the tiny alley where we were supposed to park our car.
– At this point, Isla decides it is time to get up on her soap box and complain dramatically about how dark and scary the neighborhood is, how unfamiliar everything is in Boston, and how she will probably have nightmares… how do kids know to pull this stuff out at EXACTLY the worst time?!
– We found the alley. The notes from the Airbnb host instructed us to park in spot 7. There was no spot 7.
– We circled through a maze of tight alleys and parking lots in our big dumb minivan to get back to the alley where we are supposed to park. Spot 3 was open, and upon reviewing the notes from our hosts, they had attached a photo of spot 3, so we figured they had just made an error when they instructed us to park in spot 7. The ominous music should have begun at this point, because there were oh-so many errors with their instructions…
– We unpacked the kids and grabbed the snacks, hoping to dash up the road to our building as quickly as possible, since it was pouring and all our rain gear was packed in the suitcase. I heard a giant pop! The gallon of milk had slipped out of Isaac’s hand, split open, and was spilling down the street.
– We recovered the remaining half gallon and turn to make a run for the building— just in time to see someone pull up to the entrance of the alley, get out of the car and begin throwing up everywhere on the side of the road. Pleasant.
– It was approaching midnight when we made it into the building. The building code worked and we found apartment 12. Phew!
– We punched the code into the apartment door, the light blinked, but the door wouldn’t open. We repeated the process another 3-4 times. We pulled out Isaac’s phone, double checked the instructions (we had followed them all) and tried the door another 3-4 times.
– Suddenly, a half-asleep woman OPENS the door from INSIDE our Airbnb! Uh…
– She informs us that her family has rented the apartment until the next day. We review our Airbnb instructions with the woman, show her the picture of the hosts, and she confirms that they were hosting them as well. She mentioned the hosts had another apartment in the complex. As we looked over the message once more we notice another discrepancy regarding the actual building number, so we assumed we went to the wrong building. We apologized to the woman profusely and thankfully, she was understanding.
– We went to the next building, but the access code box didn’t have the number ‘0’ which is in the access code we were given, so we clearly weren’t supposed to be in that building.
– We ran back through the rain to the van to look back over our notes from the Airbnb hosts. The person at the end of the alley is still outside their car vomiting.
– Upon reviewing the message we discovered there were TONS of inconsistencies within their instructions and notice there was a third building number listed. Perhaps that was where we were supposed to go? I stayed in the car with the kids, while Isaac ran to that building.
– 10 minutes later he returned saying the building code worked, but that apartment 12 was on the 3rd floor instead of the 2nd. He tried the code anyway. It didn’t work and he could hear voices inside that apartment as well, so he left. He then attempted to call our hosts. No answer.
– So, there we were at midnight, huddled up in our minivan, the wind and rain howling outside, trying to find a reasonably priced hotel— a near impossible feat in Boston!
– We finally found a hotel outside the city in Braintree— Good ol’ Best Western to the rescue!— and made our way there. Cole passed out hard on the way and thankfully we were able to transfer him to his bed without him waking. Isaac, Isla and I tucked into the snacks from the drug store, including the Honey Nut Cheerios, for our eclectic 1:00am dinner.
Despite all the craziness and the unpleasantness of our day, we are proud to say we remained pretty darn calm and positive. Go, us! Every traveler needs to earn their badges, and I think this experience gained us each a few!