The joys of being a writer means that every experience- from good to sublime, from bad to ridiculous- can become a story you can tell!
My favorite example for you (and your readers) is the time we spent the first day of our decades-in-the-planning trip to Italy at the Heathrow airport in a miles long line. Our flight out of New York was delayed by hours (spent held captive in the plane on the tarmac while they fixed landing gear. Yes, please attend to that landing gear!) and then, despite being hours late for our connecting flight we’d been delighted upon deplaning at Heathrow that we’d already been rebooked for new flights. We hustled through security only to be told that we need not have bothered- no one was going anywhere, despite the sunny skies we could see outside the window there was a “low ceiling” event preventing every plane from taking off. This was to have been our first and only day in Milan, the beginning of another couples honeymoon, the start of dorm move in for a Transylvanian music student and his family, the arrival home after a long and disappointing vacation for a couple of homesick German girls… There were a lot of grumpy faces of people who weren’t where they were meant to be. This was the first day of my long awaited vacation. I’d managed to leave home and I was surrounded by citizens of the world and I wanted to enjoy myself so I started talking and asking questions of everyone whose path I crossed. And in a serpentining miles or kilometers long path that was a lot of people. Mostly we met other Americans, Europeans- from many countries, and residents of the UK but there were a couple South Americans and probably a couple Asians. I don’t remember any Africans. To date it’s one of my most treasured travel memories. Once people (most, not all) surrendered into the understanding that this was our situation for the next 20 or so hours we became a community. We shared resources. We shared laughter and encouragement. We celebrated the successes when people managed to get new flights and we shared the disappointment of those who would spend even longer awaiting resolution. As in all of life there was inequity and hardship but there were also many hugs, shared tears and loud cheers. I saw the world from my place in line at Heathrow airport in September 2016.
I’m glad for you + thoroughly impressed with your abilities. Please do tell how you got the airline to pay for a hotel…Alaska straight-up refused twice to spring for a hotel when we were weather & ‘available gate’ delayed out of Raleigh/landing at SeaTac and they closed the boarding doors *in view of us [plus half a dozen others connecting]running*. Then they sent an empty & demeaning “aw, there there” reply to my complaint afterward. Luckily our friend on the flight had a bunch of Marriott points to get a double room we could share, and there was a hotel shuttle. I promise I put on my kindest teacher/mom face & used a professional voice but they wouldn’t even make eye contact with us when they said no. 😒
The supervisor at the gate is the one who got our hotel rooms covered. We were waiting patiently and listening to the team work through details and the supervisor insisted that everyone should have their rooms covered and overrode whatever the initial offer was. (I think maybe a partial voucher.) The details are a bit fuzzy to me because at that point I had been awake for around 23 hours.
The joys of being a writer means that every experience- from good to sublime, from bad to ridiculous- can become a story you can tell!
My favorite example for you (and your readers) is the time we spent the first day of our decades-in-the-planning trip to Italy at the Heathrow airport in a miles long line. Our flight out of New York was delayed by hours (spent held captive in the plane on the tarmac while they fixed landing gear. Yes, please attend to that landing gear!) and then, despite being hours late for our connecting flight we’d been delighted upon deplaning at Heathrow that we’d already been rebooked for new flights. We hustled through security only to be told that we need not have bothered- no one was going anywhere, despite the sunny skies we could see outside the window there was a “low ceiling” event preventing every plane from taking off. This was to have been our first and only day in Milan, the beginning of another couples honeymoon, the start of dorm move in for a Transylvanian music student and his family, the arrival home after a long and disappointing vacation for a couple of homesick German girls… There were a lot of grumpy faces of people who weren’t where they were meant to be. This was the first day of my long awaited vacation. I’d managed to leave home and I was surrounded by citizens of the world and I wanted to enjoy myself so I started talking and asking questions of everyone whose path I crossed. And in a serpentining miles or kilometers long path that was a lot of people. Mostly we met other Americans, Europeans- from many countries, and residents of the UK but there were a couple South Americans and probably a couple Asians. I don’t remember any Africans. To date it’s one of my most treasured travel memories. Once people (most, not all) surrendered into the understanding that this was our situation for the next 20 or so hours we became a community. We shared resources. We shared laughter and encouragement. We celebrated the successes when people managed to get new flights and we shared the disappointment of those who would spend even longer awaiting resolution. As in all of life there was inequity and hardship but there were also many hugs, shared tears and loud cheers. I saw the world from my place in line at Heathrow airport in September 2016.
I’m glad for you + thoroughly impressed with your abilities. Please do tell how you got the airline to pay for a hotel…Alaska straight-up refused twice to spring for a hotel when we were weather & ‘available gate’ delayed out of Raleigh/landing at SeaTac and they closed the boarding doors *in view of us [plus half a dozen others connecting]running*. Then they sent an empty & demeaning “aw, there there” reply to my complaint afterward. Luckily our friend on the flight had a bunch of Marriott points to get a double room we could share, and there was a hotel shuttle. I promise I put on my kindest teacher/mom face & used a professional voice but they wouldn’t even make eye contact with us when they said no. 😒
The supervisor at the gate is the one who got our hotel rooms covered. We were waiting patiently and listening to the team work through details and the supervisor insisted that everyone should have their rooms covered and overrode whatever the initial offer was. (I think maybe a partial voucher.) The details are a bit fuzzy to me because at that point I had been awake for around 23 hours.
Also, if United had not covered the room and cab fare, we would have already submitted an insurance claim by now.
Oh?! Clearly I need more instruction from you - I’m back in Virginia in a few weeks…😀
Ooooh, when and where?