Recent Travels

Our most recent trips were to Tucson for Seline and Dylan's wedding, and I went to DC to buy an application form for a new passport. The latter is a long story...

On the topic of Tucson, we missed our original departure from Boston to [Dallas Fort Worth] Tucson due to the never-ending delights of the TSA. There must have been at least three hundred people in the security line: even the airline staff were wondering out loud what the heck was happening. People ahead of us whose flights were due to depart after ours were allowed to skip the line, but we were told to keep standing in the queue... and eventually raced to our gate to see that the jetway had just been pulled back from the plane. The people who'd been allowed to cut the line (whose flight was due to leave ten minutes after ours) ended up with a delayed flight, so they had to wait airside too. Fortunately the staff of American were helpful, and Peter's BA status got us into the Admirals club lounge, where a star by the name of Maureen re-routed us through Chicago. We arrived only a couple of hours later than originally planned: good thing we were booked on one of the early flights [though if we had been flying later perhaps the TSA would have been more manageable?]

As for DC, the passport tale isn't done yet so rather than jinxing myself I'll wait to tell the story until I am able to travel internationally again. The upside was that I saw one of my business school classmates, Faheen (and her eight month old son Zain), and after all the embassy hoo-ha had a beautiful autumn afternoon of wandering around DC to see the White House [tourists + protestors] and war memorials [more tourists + a massive school group]. I have posted some photos and will post more over the coming days.

Oh, and there was *no* line at the TSA in DC, though I had hours of time to spare before my flight. The TSA staff manning the checkpoint I went through told me they'd been on duty for almost an hour and I was the first person they'd dealt with that day [they were a few checkpoints down from the end of the line]. Perhaps Dulles could send some of their extra TSA staff and scanners to Logan?

Unexpected Diversion

(Note - I'm posting notes in a haphazard order, and Peter wants to leave the Internet cafe soon, so next time you read our blog scroll down to read "older" posts that have in fact been posted since you read this - a bit of time travel :-)

Half an hour before we were due to land in Beijing the sun started coming up, but we were flying away from it (i.e. west) rather than towards it. Sure enough a few minutes later the captain announced that there was dense fog in Beijing and all flights were being diverted. We were going to land in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, refuel, and continue our journey once the fog cleared.

(to be continued...)

Leaving Boston

from Peter:

A bit after the fact, but Vera asked that I post something about getting out the gate. We had an eventful time of it getting underway. We had noticed some water in the basement on some mornings – a little around the hot water boiler and a little around one of the big drain pipes. We weren't sure where the water was coming from – the boiler, a pipe, or ground water. Well, the week before we left we discovered it was the hot water boiler. We were able to get it sorted on Tuesday before we left and fortunately the whole thing didn't give way and flood the basement. Then on Wednesday evening (day before we leave), Vera was doing a last load of laundry in the basement and noticed more water – this time streaming out of the main drain/sewer pipe for the whole building. We get the plumbers to come back and it's another major job. They show up on the morning of our flight to start the work. That morning was very cold and icy in Boston. We had had a small storm the night before and then things melted and refroze. Before I could get out the door to the airport I had to dig out the gate and door to the basement which had been encased in ice. Finally got the plumbers in and working. This slowed us a little, but the real problem came when we tried to get a taxi to the airport. A couple of taxi companies wouldn't answer the phone and the one that did said "15 minutes". After 20 minutes we called again and were told "5 minutes" but still no cab. Calling again we were told that the driver was stuck in traffic but on his way. Then they just stopped answering the phone. So we waited and called for 1.5 hrs and still couldn't get a cab. Finally we saw a neighbour returning home so we asked if we could pay him to take us to the airport. He said he'd do it for free – this was about 35 minutes to flight time now but we still had a shot at making it if there was no traffic. So we zip off and cut through some side streets to the highway to the airport when, bam! we hit a funeral procession that goes on and on and even had a police escort. Unbelievable. When we finally get to the airport its now 20 min before our flight but the BA desks are all empty and the flight has closed. So – morning of Day 1: 2 big plumbing bills and a missed flight.



Now we're at the airport and after trying to locate someone from BA we find that the ticket desk only reopens at 3pm (its 11am). I call BA and they say that the first flight they can re-book us on out of Boston is the 19th. We would still be able to make our Beijing connection but it would wipe out our trip to Europe to see Vera's mom and sisters. I explained our predicament and they are quite helpful. They say that if we can get to Newark, New Jersey we can catch the 8:45pm flight that evening. This means we'd forfeit our London hotel, but we can still meet up with Vera's mom and then connect with our Brussels flight. So with some phone calls to friends (shout outs to Regina and Phil), we buy two tickets to Newark. The storm the day before has messed up flights on the eastern seaboard, but fortunately there are many flights to Newark and we get on one. We have revolting lunch at Logan (Boston) airport and hope that the trip gets smoother.



On the plus side, the travel insurance that we bought is already starting to pay for itself! And at least the sewer pipe started to go BEFORE we left and not while we were away for 5 weeks. We make our connection in Newark and then it's a glass of wine and sweet dreams as we finally leave the US, head out over Gander and the North Atlantic and on to London.