The trip to the airport for a voyage home after an extended stay in a foreign country is usually a bittersweet experience. I've always got a mix of sadness at leaving and the pangs of excitement at going home.
As I arrived at Beijing's airport, I looked around and said a mental adieu to the country and the people.
Which is when the woman from United told me to please go to another line, as the flight to Dulles (my flight) had been delayed until tomorrow.
What?
How does a 6:00 PM flight even get delayed until 8:30 the following AM? That's fourteen hours there folks, what could possibly have made you so late? It's possible to take a pregnancy test when you're not that late.
At least the folks at United handled it pretty well (while I was having Abby call the travel system that booked my flight to try to find any way home), opening up a partner airline's kiosks to check in the stranded Dulles people, automatically issuing hotel vouchers and handling (ably) all the connecting flight info. They even booked me on a Continental commuter from DC to EWR because their own flight would have kept me sitting there six hours between flights. (As it is though I have only a 90 minute window to connect, and since it's not United, I don't get to transfer, I have to check out and back into another terminal—that's not going to happen.)
Luckily I kept my hotel room an extra night, so after grabbing a change of clothes from my bag, headed back to town. Luckily again my new friend Joseph is still in town, so we spent the day hunting down the Apple store, drinking beers out on a patio and having an exquisite dinner.
Still, I had really wished that I would have been part-the-way-home by now. It's been a long trip, I'm eager to get back home and into the arms of my wife, and so I'd really like to no longer be in this country.
I miss DC.
Posted by: Jonnywhoops | August 25, 2008 at 11:56 AM