A Mad Dash To Accommodate an Unexpected Schedule Change
21.03.2018 - 22.03.2018
This past winter has seemingly
dragged on FOREVER. It seems as though it has been cold for months on
end, so while it had been a nearly snowfree winter all year, it had been
unseasonably cold, and thoughts of desert heat carried us through the
final weeks before our planned departure for Egypt on the night of
Thursday, 22 March. Anna and Charlotte were to be off from 26 March
through 2 April, and would only miss one day of school in this, their
senior year of high school. As fate would have it, we had our only true
snowfall of the season on Wednesday, 21 March, with about six inches of
very wet and heavy snow falling in the area. School was cancelled, and
even the government closed, so I was home. Though GW was closed, K
worked from home that snowy day. With the unexpected closure of my
work, I spent the day packing for our departure the following evening,
if only to keep myself busy. While Anna was working on packing, the
school district announced around noon that they were closing for the
next day, too, on account of the snow. This extra day led Anna to stop
packing, in anticipation of finishing the next day, well ahead of our
7:00pm flight to Vienna, from where we'd connect to a flight to Cairo,
and arrive in the Egyptian capital around 6:30pm local on Friday. In
the middle of dinner on Wednesday, however, we had a phone call from an
Austrian gate agent at Dulles Airport. She told me that she'd literally
just received word that our flight to Vienna for the next day had been
cancelled. The agent could not tell me why the flight was cancelled,
and with the storm passed, it made no sense to us. Only after we
returned did I read that it was in fact a strike among Austrian Airline
employees which forced them to cancel about 200 flights, of which one
was ours. Whatever the reason, she said that as soon as she received
advanced word of the cancellation, she skimmed all the reservations for
local contact numbers, and ours stood out. She said that she couldn't
guarantee us getting out on Thursday, or even Friday via a different
routing, but added that she could get us out later that night, if we
could be ready to take a 10:30pm flight to Munich on Lufthansa, and then
an onward connection with EgyptAir. Our tickets were award tickets
booked with United, but as all these airlines are part of the Star
Alliance, it gave them flexibility to move us around. Barbara and
Charlotte had booked the same outward flights as us. I asked the agent
on the phone if there was room for all five of us on the new itinerary,
which was complicated, as we had booked Business Class seats, of which
there are simply fewer. She confirmed that she could lock in five
seats, but only if I committed immediately. K quickly called Barbara
and they spoke on one line while I stayed on with the Austrian agent.
Anna's school was already cancelled, and K had taken Thursday off anyway
to get ready, so after hearing that Barbara could make it work, we
snagged the seats and started the mad scramble to get ready. I
sincerely thanked the Austrian agent for being so proactive and helpful.
It was 7:00pm before we got off the phone and started the mad dash to
get ready to leave for the airport in a couple hours. As I had fully
planned to work on Thursday, I called my deputy to advise her, and then
headed into work to close out some things that had to be done before I
could leave. Barbara and Charlotte were in more dire straits, as
Charlotte had not yet started to pack, and she was at work when all of
this happened, so she had to leave work, head home and pack, and then
finish writing a paper that had to be turned in on-line before midnight.
As soon as I got home from work around 9:00pm, we called an Uber for the airport. This was our first time using Uber to get to Dulles, but as I've had trouble with our regular cab company the last few times I've traveled for work, we elected to give it a try. It worked out fine, and other than having to turn back a few minutes after leaving home, as I'd left my cell phone in the mad rush for the door, we got to the airport in plenty of time. We met up with Barbara and Charlotte in the Lufthansa lounge, and had very little time to catch our collective breath before boarding. Charlotte even managed to finish writing her paper on her phone (?!), and hit the submit button minutes before the airplane doors closed and we started to taxi for takeoff.
As soon as I got home from work around 9:00pm, we called an Uber for the airport. This was our first time using Uber to get to Dulles, but as I've had trouble with our regular cab company the last few times I've traveled for work, we elected to give it a try. It worked out fine, and other than having to turn back a few minutes after leaving home, as I'd left my cell phone in the mad rush for the door, we got to the airport in plenty of time. We met up with Barbara and Charlotte in the Lufthansa lounge, and had very little time to catch our collective breath before boarding. Charlotte even managed to finish writing her paper on her phone (?!), and hit the submit button minutes before the airplane doors closed and we started to taxi for takeoff.
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| Out Plane to Munich |
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| Relaxing After a Hectic Evening |
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