Journey to Miami

Rick and I flew to Miami the day before our cruise, and I want to report that I was not at all calm during the flight.  Shocking, right?  I know.  It wasn't my fault though - the plane was doing scary things!

First of all, once we were seated and waiting to leave (well, everyone else was seated ... I was curled up and shaking and preparing for death) there was this super loud noise that sounded like a fire alarm.

Me: What's that?!
Rick: Relax.  It just means we're going to back up from the gate.
Me: DOES IT MEAN THE PLANE IS ON FIRE??????

He said no, but I wasn't convinced.  I kept jerking my head around checking for smoke.  As we backed up from the gate (ok ok, I guess Rick was telling the truth) I decided I would rather plummet to my firey death wearing sunglasses, so I put mine on.  I mean, flames are bright.  It made sense.

Me: Hey, I'm the only one wearing sunglasses.
Rick: Yes, you are.
Me: Well, what if they think I'm wearing them because I'm some handicapped blind person?
Rick: Maybe that'll make them upgrade us.

My concerns were clearly a joke to him.  At this point we were approaching the runway, but we suddenly stopped.  I knew this couldn't be normal.  Planes don't just stop ... something sinister was going on here.

Me: Why are we stopping?!  Did they find something wrong with the plane?  Are they going to let us get off?  Are they going to fly it anyway? 
Rick (his face very close to mine, looking at me as if I'm 3 years old): Ashley, everything is fine.
Me: Then why did we stop???
Rick: I don't know.

Well, that did it.  I thought of Rick as my plane expert; I knew he would have an answer for all my questions, but not even he knew why we had stopped!  I started to get hot and panicky (well, more panicky).  Then we started moving again.  I looked out of my little window to try to see where we were going, and I could sort of see the runway.

Me: Ok, that road is not long enough.
Rick: What road?
Me: The road we're supposed to take off from.  We're going to crash right off the end of it.
Rick (switching to comfort-a-hysterical-toddler mode): Ashley, everything is fine.  It's long enough.  Trust me.
Me: I don't!  You didn't even know why we stopped!  I'm telling you, I can see with my own eyes that we're going to run out of room!

Of course, I was wrong; the flight was fine.  Whatever.

The drama wasn't over, though, because we landed in Miami International Airport, otherwise known as We Make Every F-ing Announcement In English AND Spanish.  We got our bags and found a sign (miraculously not in Spanish) advertising a free shuttle service that would take us to our hotel.  Rick tried calling the number 3 times, and no one ever answered.  At this point, we were both tired and starving, so we walked outside to just take a cab to the hotel.

Warning: If you are ever at this airport and think you can just take a cab somewhere, as if it's a normal thing to do, think again.  These cabs don't want you.  You are not good enough for these cabs.  Nope, not even if you have money to give them.  Repeat: These cab drivers do not want your money.  They are simply driving around for the fun of it, and possibly to soak up the Spanglish atmosphere.

We tried to get into 3 different cabs, and each time, when we told them to take us to the hotel, they LITERALLY said that we had to take the shuttle, and they refused to drive us.  What.The.Fuck.  We were offering to pay them to drive us somewhere, and they kept kicking us out.  So we ended up having to wait for the stupid shuttle, extremely pissed off due to lack of food and cab-driver bullshit.

When we finally got to our room, all I could think about was how hungry I was.  I found 2 delivery menus on the floor.  They were really similar, but one of them said "WE SPEAK ENGLISH" in bold at the bottom.  Bingo.

Rick called in our order (commenting "The whole 'we speak English' thing?  Yeah, that's borderline.") and we waited ... and waited ... and waited.  I was about to die of starvation.  I figured they hadn't understood what Rick said or they had tried to take a cab to the hotel or something.  FINALLY almost 2 hours later, our food arrived. 

I scarfed it down like I had been raised by wolves and immediately fell asleep, praying that I wouldn't have nightmares dubbed in Spanish.