Musical Chairs

(This was written afternoon of Aug 13)

Who would’ve thought we could run into so many ticketing issues in one trip. I just kept saying that we were getting out all of the “surprises”at the beginning of the trip. :) Although we arrived to Lax 3 hours before our flight, we had a grand total of ten minutes to spare before boarding by the time we got everything figured out. It took about an hour for us to check in. Apparently the whole month has been insanely busy at United. The lines moved fast, but once we got up to the ticket counter, we found out that we had a “ticketing issue”. Basically it meant that our bags wouldn’t be sent all the way through to Madrid. Instead, we would have to check the bags again in San Francisco, our second stop—which had less than an hour and a half layover. After chatting with the friendly United folks for a while about the impossible feat of trying to check our bags in San Fran, we got confirmation that our bags would be sent through to Madrid. Phew! I’m still crossing my fingers that our bags make it to Madrid as I sit here in the Frankfurt airport waiting for our last flight to board.

Then, in San Fran, we found out that due to the Lufthansa strike, our ticket number was “double assigned” to both United and Lufthansa. Again, we got that all cleared up with about 5 minutes to run upstairs and grab some snacks before boarding for Frankfurt. The flight over to Frankfurt was fine once Brent and I were able to sit by each other. We had assigned seats that were one row up and a few seats over. Bummer. It seemed like everyone in the back of the plane had families or significant others, so about 15 minutes after takeoff, the very friendly Lufthansa flight staff played musical chairs to satisfy everyone’s request and we were set. Before getting our final seats, I ended up chatting with a girl who had just finished up her first year at Davis and was on her way to visit relatives in Moscow. She backpacked through Europe with her buddy last summer and had a grand ole time. She was fluent in English, Russian, and French!

Let me back up a bit, though. Before we boarded the Lufthansa flight for Frankfurt, the counter made an announcement that the entertainment system would not be working for the flight. One American woman apparently thought that the movie mechanics were directly tied to the mechanics of the airplane engine. Over a very concerned phone call, she explained in a quite flustered tone that she couldn’t BELIEVE that the entertainment system was not working. “Makes you wonder what else isn’t working in this plane” she announced. Oh dear. Poor lady.

We survived without the move. I slept most of the time and Brent got a few hours in. The meals were surprisingly satisfactory. I’m hoping to just fuel up on some java so I can last throughout this first day to avoid jetlag. Hopefully Brent’s coffee aversion doesn’t drag out his jet lag. A couple more hours until we board, so this will be posted online long after we have arrived in Madrid safe and sound.