Nomad's Pub

Travel Musings...

Here's something I typed out earlier, when I didn't have internet access...thought I'd go ahead and post it now, anyways.

And just to note, I finally did get out of Bufallo at 11am, landed in Philly at 1pm, and left Philly (after an hour delay) at around 11pm.


15 December 2006, 10:00am

So, it’s Friday, 15 December 2006, and I am still sitting in Buffalo Airport, NY. Yes, you did read that right. Still sitting.

By all accounts and all original plans, I ought to have been traipsing the streets of London at this exact moment. But no.

This month marks nearly a whole year since I have last flown, and apparently one can forget in a years time all the uncertainties of travel.

There are several rules of travel, rules that will never, ever change. And some of these rules are
1) Expect the unexpected
2) Be flexible
3) Travel light.
I seem to have forgotten the first two, though I have the third one down rather nicely. All of my possessions for the next six months are packed into a large (duffle bag) backpack weighing 34 Lb, a little carry-on, a purse, and my laptop case. Which, granted, is still quite a lot for one person to lug around. Besides that, I am wearing several layers of clothes and carrying two coats, two scarves, and two hats.

Now why am I still in Buffalo, when I ought to have left here yesterday afternoon? Right. About that unexpected? Well, it happened. According to our ticket assistant today, yesterday was one of the top ten worst travel days with this airline ever. The entire East Coast of the USA was pretty much shut down.

I lined up for baggage check-in at 1:15 pm, with my flight scheduled to leave for Philly at 3:05 pm.

At somewhere around 4:10 pm, we finally boarded, and no sooner did we board but we buckled, and no sooner had we buckled but they said Nevermind! We can’t leave until at least until 6 pm. So we deboarded.

Then again… finally, at around what, 7 pm, maybe? I don’t remember exactly, we lined up and boarded again. Buckled up again. They started the engine and the propellers went round and round. We moved to the end of the runway and—they cancelled our flight.

Absolutely brilliant.

So, I spent about 15 minutes in line waiting to rebook my tickets, and then the next hour trying to get them rebooked. There were no more flights out that night. They rebooked my flying Buffalo to Boston to London to Vienna—and then they realised I was only flying their airline to Philadelphia and then switching to an unaffiliated airline. So again, nevermind.

I tried really hard to be fine. Really, the ridiculousness of the situation was striking. But it kind of struck the wrong way, and once my eyes got a little teary, it just didn’t stop.

So, travel rule #4: tears can work wonders.

I always knew it’s okay to cry. I move around a lot, and that is one of a nomad’s golden rules. (or at least, it ought to be). But I never realised how effective unaffected tears can be on ticket agents. Four agents later and I worked with one who bent over backwards to help me.

“It must be a silver tongue,” he said, after managing to sweet talk British Airways into protecting my flight for me and just moving it over until tonight. “You know we really have no obligation except to get you to Philadelphia, right? But we’ll see if we can get this mess figured out.” And he did.

So I *should* arrive in London a full 24 hours later than I was supposed to.

Everyone else had their tickets rebooked a full 20 minutes, at least, before I was set.

Then I got to go and claim my luggage (I checked in the duffle-back-pack) downstairs, wash my face, go back upstairs, and crash on the floor of Burger King.

I’ll just doze off and on, I thought. Riiigghht.

I slept like a rock. When I sat down and situated myself, the chairs were all up on the tables. When I woke up two hours later, they were all down on the ground except the table closest to me. I hadn’t heard a thing.

And I promptly fell asleep again, only to be abruptly woken up at 3 am. When I say abruptly, I really mean it, too. Some nice, undoubtedly very weary gentleman was using one of those enormous vacuum machines that you ride around on, and may I just say, waking up to that? I think I just about jumped out of my skin, and I definitely leapt up to my feet despite the fact that I had been sound asleep. I had no idea where I was, either, but it was perfectly terrifying.

When I recollected everything and realised what the racket was, I just sat back down and laughed and laughed. And then I fell back asleep.

This time, I woke up at 5:30 to a man saying “Excuse me? ‘Scuze me… Miss?” And someone nudging my feet. I managed to squint my eyes open a bit for a peek, and saw this kind, dark face leaning over me. “Miss, do you know the time? Did you miss your flight, miss? I don’t want you to miss your flight.” I hadn’t missed my flight, but I thought that was the sweetest thing, ever. It’s nice to wake up just knowing that God really is taking care of you and watching over you.

So, I got up and waited to check my luggage back in (45 minute process, to be exact), and sang Christmas carols the whole time long. People were pretty grumpy looking, so I sang softly, but it was nice. Refreshing. Then I grabbed a bagel and some water. Best meal ever. (Well, not quite, but considering…)

Oh yes! And I went over to talk with one of the women who was working on our flight, and the man with her (also airport worker), and they gave me a whole container of fudge. That was so nice.

Airports are such a world apart. And while, like in life we are all either common friends or common enemies, we all know a connection exists between us… even when the connection is a missed flight!

This morning as I sit here, many familiar faces from last night’s twice boarding experience look back at me when I glance around. And we exchange smiles, or skeptical looks as they announce still more delays, and sympathetic smiles for matted hair and clothing that begins to feel as though it might start growing on you.

I love this life. It excites even as it exhausts. You talk with people whose names you never ask, and discover resources you did not know, or at least forgot, existed. It makes such an excellent study of humanity and communication. And excellent for remembering the important things in life.

My plans are rather battered right now. I discovered the night before I left home (college) that my trip to Wales was cancelled. So I rearranged my plans and scheduled myself to go home earlier. Very disappointing. Good preparation for today (no, yesterday’s) experience. Because now with the delayed, cancelled, and missed flights, my second biggest plan for in the UK is void as well.

But I think I am starting to feel excited a bit, because I am more and more curious just what will happen next. What will happen next?

It is 10:36am and I’m still waiting. We are supposed to know at about 11 am as to whether we will board soon after that or not. Of course, we were supposed to know that at 9 am, and at 10 am, too. So who can say?

The idea of spending 24 hours in this airport does not appeal to me much, but… they *say* we should be able to head out relatively soon.

And meanwhile….

posted by Lada @ 6:36 AM