The absolute worst was this past July when I had a delayed flight, then once we got in the air the plane was struck by lightning and had to have an emergencey landing. I spent the night in some random airport and got to my final destination about 10 hours AFTER I was scheduled to arrive.
I was highly upset...
Upward Bound took a summer trip to New Orleans one year for campus visitations and touring. It would have been too expensive to fly so we chartered a bus. I forgot exactly how long it took, but it's a long ride from Charleston to Nawlins. On the way back the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a hot summer day! We had to sit on the bus and WAIT until another bus from the company came from Charleston to rescue us. A bunch of black folk...on a bus...one bathroom...no food...no AC in the south in the middle of the summer!! We were out there for at least 6hrs. Talk about bad experience!!
One of the worst travel experiences I had was when my family and I went to Washington, DC to visit our people (that's where we are from, although we now live in NC) in a cheap car my dad got two days before we left. This was back somewhere in 1988 or 89.
Anyway, we had already told our people in DC (grandparents, cousins, aunts, etc) that we were going to visit them, but then my dad's car broke down on him. Well, he bought a 1985 (I think) Oldsmobile Omega for $200 from a "buy here, pay here" lot, and asked the seller if he thought that the new-used car could make to DC. Naturally, the sellsman told him yes, he thought it could.
Well, we rode to DC with no problem. But, on our way back, somewhere in the middle of Virginia, the car started letting out some heavy white smoke. The car eventually stalled on us. There we were, some hundreds of miles from home, with our luggage, stuck on the side of I-95, without a clue as to how to get home.
Fortunately, by the grace of God Almighty Himself, there was a tractor trailor- truck driver that was headed in the same direction we were. This nice White stranger (man) took us (5-member black family) and our luggage all the way back to Statesville, NC in his truck. He did not charge us one penny.
I really don't remember what my dad did with the car. I think he just left it in Virginia.
But I would say that that was the most embarrasing, worst traveling experience I have ever had.
One of my bad experiences traveling was recently on my way to visit back home in new york. As soon as I found my seat ( ALLL THE WAY IN THE BACK) and got comfortable the flight attendant came to me and was questioning me about my seating even when i showed her my boarding pass for about 5 minutes. Then this kinda big lady not only took up all of her seat AND bunched over to mine but then on top of that she was terrified of flying. So the whole lift off experience was horrible with her grabbing on to me and literally screaming and sobbing. THEN in the middle of the flight mind you I'm semi sleeping thanks to the help of my ipod I wake up because this baby a couple of rows behind me is bawling and I find the lady beside me knocked out with her not so light head on my shoulders. Not to mention i had the aisle (sp) seat and people seemingly could not resist brushing against me everytime they passed. So all in all by the time I was at JFK I was pretty much in a foul attitude and I couldnt enjoy that welcome back feeling I usually felt when I'm in NY..
Negril, Jamaica
I was the most **** off person in that airport. I had two pieces of luggage and while in the customs line to show my passport I was "randomly" picked to be searched. I don't know how they choose their victims but out of all the people in that airport I was the chosen one. They made me open my luggage and they looked through everything, making a mess, throwing things around and not being careful of anything. Then they wanted me to close it up. After rolling my eyes at them I had to go back in the line to get my passport stamped.
After that agony, I had to go through the regular line to get my baggage checked again. I was so upset. I told them that I just had it checked but they said they had to check it again. So i threw my baggage on the table and told them they had to open it and close it if they want to search it. The guards were approaching because I was getting loud and feisty. So I calmed down cuz I didn't want to stay in no foreign country. I just wanted to go home.
go ahead and let it out!
