Yes, really. It's so true that it sounds completely fabricated.
I was on my way to London, on very littlesleep ( with a fever toboot!), and stopped in Philly to change planes.
Lo and behold, a volcano erupted in Iceland and because of all the ash, hundreds upon hundreds of flights were cancelled.
Had we left five minutes earlier, as we were scheduled, I would be in London already.
Alas, my luck was not so.
After an hour on the phone with a customer service agent, I was one of the lucky few who actually got a flight for the next morning. Most of the others in my situation aren't leaving until Tuesday.
So rather than pay a huge sum to sleep for five much needed hours in a hotel, I asked the janitors if they wouldn't mind not kicking me out of the baggage claim while I napped. I tried unsuccessfully to sleep both on the floor in a cozy bed nest I created, complete with sarong blanket, then on the chairs. I slept about twenty minutes in total.
Oh well, I could sleep on the plane, right?
Wrong.
After five lines and two terminals, bleary eyed and most likely smelly, I came to find out that my new flight too, was cancelled. I was dire Ted to yet another terminal to a seemingly irritated ( or grumpy) lady that turned out to be positivy swell.
Why?
I asked her to get me to Europe. Paris, Rome, whatever, i'd figure it out from there.
Things were looking grim.
I was still doing my bes to smile, stay positive, and be polite instead of being angry and yelling like the other hundreds of people. Anger isn't fun, and itreally does no one any good when everyone else is angry.
Cynthulia (rulia?) found me a ticket to Madrid. She sid she had it, but asked me if there was any othe place I could think of to go that wouldn't be booked up.
Just then, one last seat appeared on the 6:20 pm flout to Paris.
Shebooked it.
I had a seat assignment on the absolute last available flight to western Europe for days.
And it was...first class!
You can see why this lady is swell, why I gave her anenthusiastic high five and told her she is a good egg.
Because even if my flint tonight ends up getting cancelled, girl gave me first class for free!
It's nice to be nice.
I am in good spirits, albeit exhausted, shaky, greasy feeling and just plain icky (minus my bum shower/sponge bath with a moist towellee at 3:30 AM). I hope it all works out. A day in Paris, and the eurostar to London...if not, I'm forking over the cash for a hotel room!
Now I'm in Philly with eight more hours until I board this supposed flight.
I'm blogging on my iPhone with blurry vision and an even blurrier brain, so please do excuse any errors on this post.
Hopefully my next post will be from Europe!
Ciaooooooooooo
