The weather which I bitched about yesterday (and, for that matter, the day before), came back to haunt me today.
Come to think of it, I’ve had a streak of really bad luck when it comes to travel over the past few months. I don’t think I’ve blogged about everything, but suffice it to say that I have had issues—at least in Paris they put me up in a 4 star hotel.
Anyhow, the first sign of trouble was when I went to the machine to check my suitcase in for my trip home. I was checking it because it was heavy and I didn’t want to have to lug it. As I was getting my bag checked the machine announced that my flight from Indianapolis to Detroit was delayed.
Not thinking much of it, I asked how long: Two hours.
Now two hours was fine, because that dropped my layover in Detroit down to 45 minutes, which although tight is completely do-able.
However, when the delay was extended another 30 minutes, and then another 15 minutes, it seemed less and less possible, so I got myself switched.
Now according to the printed itinerary I was supposed to get to Berlin late afternoon, with plenty of time to get to Weimar. Unfortunately my boarding pass was for a later flight, and my re-routed luggage was put on the later flight, not the earlier flight. I cannot change flights.
At least the Amsterdam Airport is relatively nice. I only have five more hours to kill.
Naturally I will be spending tonight in Berlin—which was not what I wanted to be doing, but it is what I am doing: complete with a room already booked.
That said, my transatlantic flight was terrific. In my rebooking I was sent to Memphis onto an Amsterdam flight that was, evidently, overbooked. I was given a boarding pass for seat 1H—business class. Champaign, nuts, a huge salad, and fantastic vegetarian ravioli were served. I skipped dessert as I sought sleep in my nearly flat seat—sleeping away blissfully unaware that I was about to spend today at the Amsterdam airport.
It’s really a mixed bag for me: on the one hand Northwest resolved my problems caused by their delay quite nicely. However, I am stuck spending the night in Berlin.
Blah.
Those who travel on Friday the 13th must accept the consequences.
Here’s hoping the rest of your trip will go better.
poor adam 🙁 *sends good vibes*
I was going to ask how that flight from Memphis was since that is probably the one I am taking next month, but you got put into the high class section of the plane. Since I’m cashing in miles I doubt if I encountered such that I’d be accomodated similarly. 🙂
@ed: It was the 12th, I swear, when i started 🙂
@koko: thanks!
@Chris: actually I was pleasantly surprised by the plane, ’cause I’d never flown that kind of plane before. It’s an A330-200 — I only know the A330-300. The best thing about my seat is that I had no clue what was going on behind me–from my usual seats I watch people board. From this seat I read a book.
It must be the day. We had a horrible time with Amtrak today. Good god – we ended up stopped on the side of the tracks 4 times waiting for the freight to go by. This made us 1 1/2 hours late to our destination stop. I’d accept that better if it was a 24 hour train ride … but an 1 1/2 hour delay on what was supposed to be around 5 hours? Ack.
Of ocurse, I’ll take the train again for my other conference because it’s cheaper than driving and paying the valet. But … I certainly won’t make any “plans” to arrive on time.