Thursday, January 22, 2009

Vagaries of Travel

Singapore is amazing.

The trip here was not.

There was a blizzard in Boston the day I left, which required us to spend an extra hour and a half in the plane on the runway "de-icing." Then there were some problems with the computer system onboard, which required another hour of sitting. So I thought giving myself a four-hour layover in London was going to be enough, but apparently not. I missed my connection in London by 15 minutes or so.

So I betook myself immediately to the airline counter to rebook, and the lady attending said "Oh! You were on the Boston flight? I thought we already contacted all those people while they were enroute and rebooked them!" Well, um, no, you missed me. So they tried to rebook me on the next flight from London to Singapore, but it was already full of all those other people they had so helpfully rebooked. So I had to take a flight on a different airline carrier altogether, through Hong Kong to SIngapore.

Which would have been fine, except they didn't tell my luggage of my change of plans. So I got to Singapore on a different day then I intended, using a different route, with an extra stop, on a different airline. Without luggage. Ah, the vagaries of travel. I left my home on Sunday at 5:30 p.m., and I arrived at my destination on Tuesday at 6:10 p.m. My passport got tagged at each security check, and I have tags on my passport from three different days. Yikes! I had nothing but airline food all that time. The *third* time I saw the flight attendants bringing around dinner, I nearly cried I was so bedraggled and out of sorts and irritated.

I called later that night and filed a missing baggage claim, then checked on it for the next several days, because it took them a long time to trace it back through several airline carriers, intended destinations, actual destinations, and missed connections. I finally did get my baggage today, Thursday.

So, um, I've now arrived?

Will write more later about my activities here -

2 comments:

  1. Oh, yeah, I know that airplane food after more than 24 hours of travel feeling all too well. Sounds awful.

    I look forward to reading about your adventures in Singapore. Have fun!

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  2. I always found the airport bar was about the only thing that kept me sane from longhaul travel.

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