Mayday Mayday

Its not that bad...but our travels so far have been far from ideal. I was prepared way before time to leave for the airport. We stopped for a relaxing lunch and picked up a few last items before cruising over the terminals. We checked our bags with no problems and had a good hour and a half to wait for our plane to arrive...which I spent trying to complete our assignments for upcoming class. But then our leisurely wait turned sour. Our original schedule was to fly out of Raleigh Durham to Washington on United flight 7237 at 4:59. We would then have 40 minutes to connect to our next flight. Well...flight 7237 was late and didn't leave for Washington till 5:25 arriving at Washington/Dulles at 6:40, leaving 10 minutes to get on our other plane.

So we make a no mercy mad dash to gate C11, knocking children and old people alike out of our way. We rush up to the gate counter, out of breath of course, to only find out they have given our seats to others and that our plane is about to leave. We are sent to the customer service station, which is at the other end of the terminal, for further assistance. When we get there it is obvious that a lot of other people are in the same boat as we are because the line wraps into at least 4 bends out into the terminal floor. So...we wait and wait and wait some more.

It takes about an hour and a half before we reach the front which didn't mean much. When we are next in line it so happens that it is also time for the agents at the desk to take their breaks so all the available agents leave. So we wait some more. But to make a long story short we have to haggle with the agents that finally helps us for another hour and a half to accommodate us for the night and redirect our flights. So I write this entry from a two bedroom suite, complete with kitchen and huge bathroom, in Washington DC. We were given food vouchers to feed an army and our flights have been redirected.
My new flight schedule is as follows:

Lufthansa flight 8833:
Departs from Washington/Dulles at 330pm
Arrives at Frankfurt at 5:30 am

Lufthansa flight 3258:
Departs from Frankfurt at 8:20 am
Arrives at Prague at 9:20 am

So it hasn't been the smoothest of travels but we are on the way. I guess its not about where you're going but how you get there and this has made for a good journey so far.