I took the shuttle to the airport on Monday morning. Everything went so well. The traffic at seven in the morning was moving quickly and I got to the airport two hours before my flight left.
The scales gods must have been with me because the man at check-in did not even put the bag on the scales. He just put on the tags and sent me to the big x-ray machine to drop it off at SLC.
I got to Dulles okay but from there it went downhill. Nothing that couldn't be managed though.
We boarded the plane in Dulles and were delayed over an hour because someone checked in luggage but did not get on the plane. When they finally located and extracted the luggage, we had to wait in line to be de-iced before we could take off. My connecting flight in Munich going on to Helsinki left at 8:50. We arrived in Munich at about 9 am. That meant there were about 200 people standing in line hoping to get their flights rerouted to their final destinations. Sigh.
When I finally got to the front of the line about an hour later, the agent told me that I had already been rerouted on a flight going to Warsaw and from Warsaw to Helsinki. The alternative? Stay in Munich until 2:45 pm to get the next direct flight on the airline to Finland. I opted for the later flight. I had no desire to see the airport in Warsaw.
The next problem was, how was I going to let the professor know that I would be arriving about six hours later than we thought. No free internet. Well, I could have had 30 minutes free if I had given Telekom my phone number. No phone. And the airline would have called him but no telephone number. Bigger sigh.
By then I was so tired that I propped my carry on luggage against my leg and fell asleep on a chair.
On the flight from Germany to Finland, I had seat 6C which was great. So close to the front. I slept every minute we were in the air on the way to Helsinki. When we landed the door was frozen shut so no one could get off the plane. Fortunately there was not a very long delay.
The very best part was that when I got my luggage and walked out of the door, there was the professor waiting for me. If it had been a movie there would have been fireworks or at least a crescendo.
We got home and I took my travel weary body and had a hot shower. Clean clothes. Here with my sweetheart. Who could ask for more?
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