Tag Archives: all out disasters

Catch-Up Vignettes

24 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Baby on board, Boarding Blunders, Un-fun Up in the Air

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Someone asked me the other day if the travel blog was going away since I haven’t updated it in a while. Have no fear; the domain is paid up and the travel adventures continue!

That said, I have been remiss in posting. So allow me to catch you up on my spring travel. Our vignettes’ theme is, as always, chaos.

Recap 1: MSP // BDL

For H’s second excursion by air, we were off to Connecticut for Passover. We hoped for a repeat of his stellar performance to and from LA in November but it was not to be. Unbeknownst to us, H was on his way not just to the East Coast, but to developing a double ear infection as well. It was as fun as it sounds.

Recap 2: MSP // SNA (by way of PHX)

Tickets to John Wayne (one of the loveliest airports in the country) were absurd so I was forced to connect through Phoenix. On US Air. I was pretty stabby by the end of this one.

Clearly I try to only ever fly Delta to keep all my status consolidated, but if I must fly someone else, I try to ensure it’s not someone that’s in the process of being acquired. Unfortunately, the fare could not be beat so US Air it was.

The flight to PHX wasn’t terrible except that I was fighting a terrible virus (thanks to living with a host monkey) and was just starting to slightly recover. Although we stopped in Phoenix, I was continuing on the same plane and we were set to depart 35 minutes later. I got off to stretch my legs and was unpleasantly surprised to find the cattle call that was the US Air gate area. Every flight was taking off within 10 minutes of each other, there were people everywhere, and the staff clearly was over. it. Magical.

Usually a boarding vulture, with my bags already on board, I was free to hang out and watch the chaos of the boarding process. I don’t know what was going on with my flight but everyone was a hot mess. People had no idea what they were doing; there were SO MANY tiny dogs in little bags; carry-on bags were absurdly large and over packed…this was the gate where they would film a reality show where people scream at the desk attendants because their flight is late.

I was so close to death’s (and sanity’s) door by the time I got to California that I booked a direct one-way ticket home on Delta instead of connecting back through Phoenix. At least this story has a happy ending.

The lovely Gateway Arch

The lovely Gateway Arch

Recap 3: STL // MSP

Away for a Junior League conference, I was on the plane bright and early to get home on a Sunday morning.

And this is literally the only thing I can remember about this flight so it must have been the best flight of my life!

Currently writing this post from somewhere over the Plains as I’m en route to California once again. A longer post will be coming to recap this one…LA-bound flights always have the most interesting clientele and the woman wearing leopard-print cat ears is just the beginning.

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Montreal Take One: The trip that almost wasn’t

15 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Not Even On a Plane

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Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-YUL

A funny awful thing happened on our way to the airport last week…we never got there.

Thursday afternoon we were en route to the airport from downtown Minneapolis when we came to a dead stop at the 35W/62E split (this color is more interesting if you’re familiar with the Minneapolis highway system. If you’re not, just imagine a newly overhauled highway bypass where an interstate splits from an over-burdened highway and the sight lines are almost nonexistent).

Stopped in the airport exit lane, I glanced in the passenger rear view mirror just in time to see a cab coming full speed into the back of our car.

I don’t remember a lot of what happened next but apparently I uttered, “Oh god” and then the cab was in our trunk and we were ramming into the SUV in front of us. E absorbed the brunt of the impact as we were mostly hit on the driver’s side but despite this, he lived up to his Intrepid E moniker and used the burst of adrenaline to ignore his injuries and take hold of the situation. He asked me if I was ok, called an ambulance, and got us out of the car before calling our insurance agent’s office from the 62 shoulder abutting 35W.

Two Ginsburgs, one hospital bed: awaiting x-ray results

There is an airline story in here, promise. You know that whole “when you can’t control something, control anything” saying? That was me in the back of the ambulance. Right after my vitals were cleared by the EMTs, I got Delta on the phone. After explaining the situation and the fact that I was in an ambulance headed for the emergency room, the Delta agent not only confirmed us for the next direct flight to Montreal, she expedited it within minutes, told me there would be no charges whatsoever, and said she’d get me off the phone and send an email confirmation momentarily (for the record: I had the confirmation by the time we were out of Triage. Impressive.).

I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow of the 5+ hours we spent at the Abbott Emergency Room. E ended up with the worst injuries because he turned to look at me at the last second (verified by the X-ray attending) which resulted in a sprained neck, among other tedious injuries to his shoulder and back. We’re hopeful he’ll make a full recovery in time.

Thanks to the comforts of modern medicine, we did make our rescheduled flight the following evening. More on that to come. For now, our sincere gratitude to the MN State Troopers and incredible EMTs. Not my favorite trip but certainly one of the more memorable.

You Can’t Go Home Again

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, Cancellation Clusters, With love from the Tarmac

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It’s hard to believe I started the blog a year ago today. Not to get all 15 year-old emo on you, but it’s been a really amazing and gratifying experience. I’ve been able to bond with new and old friends over shared flying catastrophes as well as get some serious anxiety off my chest. So thanks, all. Cheapest therapy yet.

In honor of the one-year mark, I am finally going to recount a story I’ve been hinting at for a while now–the trip home from studying abroad in 2004…brace yourself.

Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta/KLM

Route: CDG>AMS>JFK>LGA>MSP

Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away.

-Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again

On a couple of occasions whilst trapped in some travel nightmare or another, I’ve had the distinct fear that I’m never going to get home again. I know it’s irrational and completely brought on by the current stress, but I can’t help it. There’s this point where you’re sitting on a plane/in an airport/at security and you just feel completely defeated–like all the travel gods are conspiring to keep you from your destination.

Sacre Coeur

Sacre Coeur, Paris

I have never felt this more acutely than on my way home from studying abroad in 2004. It was late June in Paris, hot and sticky, and I hadn’t been home since March. Although my time in France had been nothing short of magical, I was ready to go home.

My father had come to Paris to collect me (my parents joked that if they didn’t physically retrieve me I wouldn’t ever come home) and it had been the perfect close to my travels as I got to spend a week showing off the city I had come to love. But now we were homeward bound.

Things got off to a bad start right at Charles de Gaulle. As mentioned in my post on this airport, it is perpetually under construction and, despite Paris being a huge tourist attraction, nobody really wants to help you. So my dad and I wandered around until we found the temporary relocation of the KLM desk. Although we wouldn’t know until we were stateside that our bags had been mis-routed, the KLM agent was new to the job and not instilling a whole lot of confidence, especially when we knew this was only the first of our three legs. She consistently re-asked us our names and our final destination, even when our passports and boarding passes were in her hands…we should have known she was a harbinger of disaster.

Monet's house at Giverny

Monet’s house at Giverny

Arriving late in Amsterdam (naturally), we had about ten minutes to make our connection. Which meant I had to run the entire length of the airport with my poor dad hauling our carry-ons behind me as I tried to stop the flight from departing without us (more color on this in my last post). Luckily, the door hadn’t yet closed and we made it on the flight. Things seemed to be looking up–everything would be better once we were in the US, right? If only we had known what was ahead…

Cannes, France

Cannes, France

We landed at JFK on time and had a couple of hours before our flight to Minnesota. We were herded to the international luggage carousels to collect our luggage before connecting to our domestic flight. We waited. And waited. And waited. No luggage. Finally realizing our bags were not coming, my dad and I went through Customs and straight to the Delta luggage services office. If you ever think you have a terrible job, you don’t. Livid as I was, I cooled down considerably after watching the poor woman running the office listen to some self-absorbed businessman go on for five minutes straight about how unacceptable it was that his luggage was lost and demanding $2,000 for a replacement suit. Oy. As if she was just going to give him a wad of cash and her sincere apology.

When we got our turn with Deb (I will always remember her name because I took special note to look at it after the jerk left in a huff), I was calmer but still completely riled up. Our two checked bags were missing and they held the wine and precious souvenirs I had collected over my stay. Luckily, Deb assured us that luggage is rarely “lost”, it’s usually just mis-routed. Indeed, our bags had been sent straight through to Minneapolis rather than following us.

Gordes, France

Gordes, France (Provence). No wonder I almost didn’t come home.

With that crisis averted, we were sure it’d be smooth sailing. Oh how wrong we were.

There had been some issue with our tickets so we went up to Delta ticketing at JFK. The extremely unhelpful representative told us that our flight had been canceled due to weather and that he could potentially re-book us on a flight to MN from Laguardia, but we’d have to get over there right away as the flight was in 45 minutes. Then he ripped up our boarding passes. Ripped. Them. Up. Yes, our flight had been canceled, but shouldn’t we have some proof of our previous arrangements? Anxiety reaching Defcon 3.

But what was there to do? We hailed a taxi and got over to Laguardia. After re-checking in, we headed to our gate. By now we knew that there was some serious weather affecting all East Coast airports. In fact, every airport had been completely shut down for a few hours (including JFK, LGA, Newark, Reagan, Dulles and ATL) and flights were getting canceled left and right. Awesome news.

Swiss Alps, Geneva

Swiss Alps, Geneva

Our gate agent assured us our flight was going but we weren’t so confident when the flight next to us (to Detroit) boarded and then un-boarded with the flight ending up canceled. We did board though, and I let out a huge sigh of relief when we actually pushed back. Finally, I was going to get home!

Not so fast. During our boarding and beginning taxi, the airports were shut down again. As our pilot explained, however, if we went back to the terminal, we’d be in for the night so he wanted to wait it out on the Tarmac as that was our only shot of actually getting home. Thank goodness for a MN-based flight crew and some foresight on the part of the pilot to top off the fuel.

Three hours later we were still sitting on the Tarmac with no end in sight. My cell phone was dead as were our laptops and the mini-DVD player my dad had with him. We had pretty much nothing to do except try to remain calm. Not my forte.

FINALLY, after nearly four hours on the Tarmac, we got an update from the pilot. Apparently, airports had reopened and due to his air traffic control connections (is there a pilot frat?), we were going to get out. Better than that, because so many planes had to go back to the terminal after running low on fuel, we were going to be the second plane out of the entire East Coast. I’m pretty sure I cried when we took off. There was a whole lot of clapping.

Although I had convinced myself I was never going to get home, we did finally make it (and for all those shenanigans, we were only about seven hours late). My big bag did not (of course–god forbid something work out), but it was delivered to my parents’ house the next day and all the wine survived. Whew.

And this, my friends, is why I never make a connection. Direct flights only.

Eiffel Tower

La Tour Eiffel, bien sur

P.S. – you will all be delighted to know that after missing both our prior anniversaries due to work travel, I will be firmly planted on the ground here in MN come Thursday’s three-year mark. To the rest of our natural lives (and beyond), Intrepid E!

Airports I’ve Known and Loathed, Part II – AMS

12 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, Fun with Security

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Tulips at the Amsterdam flower market

Oh the tulips at the Amsterdam flower market

Last year, E and I visited the city of Amsterdam primarily because I had never stepped outside the airport after 10+ years of flying through it. And it was great. Amsterdam is a fabulous city and a real European treat. I only wish I could say the same for its airport.

There have been many memorable visits to Schiphol…I don’t think I’ve ever felt traveling anxiety the way I’ve felt it at AMS. It’s hard to distill, but here are the top three recollections.

  1. Amsterdam architecture

    Amsterdam architecture – the hooks are used to move large pieces of furniture.

    The time I ran the entire length of the airport. I really need to write a post about my trip home from studying abroad (yes, the same trip where #3 on this list happened), but for the sake of this discussion, I’ll just recap the very quick portion spent at Schiphol. Traveling home with my dad from Paris, our first connection was at Amsterdam. Naturally, we were late getting in and, knowing that we still had to connect at JFK (this trip is the singular reason I never connect if I can help it. Triggers the PTSD.), I was worried we’d be stuck overnight in Amsterdam or New York even if we didn’t get on the plane to NYC.

    AMS is a “one terminal” airport which can be helpful because you don’t have to take a tram between terminals but unhelpful if you get in at one end and have to get to the other. Which was exactly the case here. Because we had flown on a commuter-type flight from Paris, we weren’t near the international departures. As my father had recently had angioplasty, I took it upon myself to run ahead. Literally. Like a crazy person. I got to the podium and begged the gate agent to let us on, breathlessly telling her my father was coming and throwing around “heart condition” to gain some sympathy points. I looked (and felt) like a maniac, but we did make the flight.

  2. The time we spent an hour in the basement of Schiphol. En route home from Hungary a couple of years ago, we connected through Amsterdam. I’ll have to do some sleuthing as to whether there’s tension between the two countries, but it sure seemed like we were put through the ringer. First, we had to deplane on the Tarmac. Second, we were herded onto a bus and driven to the terminal. Finally, we were left in a teeny room, barely big enough to hold the 200 or so people from the flight. It became apparent that we’d be going through security again before being allowed into the main terminal (even though we had clearly gone through in Budapest). Sigh. There were two security staff working one conveyor so it took about an hour to get through. Thankfully, our flight had arrived slightly early so we had time to waste on these shenanigans.
  3. Anne Frank Museum, Amsterdam

    The Anne Frank Museum. Incredibly powerful.

    The time I thought we were going to have to call the State Department. Ok, this is a bit of a cop out since I already wrote an entire post on the time our passports were mis-scanned and we were pulled aside while our national identity was clarified but I think we can all agree this is about as bad as it gets. There’s nothing like being detained (ok, ok, that’s overstating it) like thinking you will be detained in a foreign country to make you want to never leave your house again. If I thought I looked like a crazy person in story one, I was even worse in this predicament as on top of the near-meltdown, I was rocking a horrible (and attractive) case of sun poisoning. Don’t be jealous.

I’m really grateful we spent time in the actual city of Amsterdam. Aside from fearing I would be run over by a bicyclist, it was an amazing time. And it makes me loathe AMS just a little bit less.

Amstel River, Amsterdam

A view from the Amstel River.

Airports I’ve Known and Loathed, Part I – CDG

26 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Adventures Abroad, With love from the Tarmac

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I mentioned in my last post that I’d write a future installment with commentary on specific airports that have caused me headaches (and blisters!). What was mostly meant as an off-handed comment actually brought some very specific requests for these posts to take place. So, much like the deconstructed baggie post, away we go!

L’Arc de Triomphe, safely taken from the center of traffic by my father.

I bet you thought I’d start with ATL but honestly, some of the most poignantly awful experiences I’ve had in an airport reside at Charles de Gaulle in Paris. I know that this has the propensity to sound like a White Whine submission, but it’s the truth. Here are the top three memories I have from disasters at CDG:

  1. The time that kid threw up. E spent a year at LSE getting a Master’s so after I graduated undergrad, we thought a European jaunt would be the perfect celebration. Since he was in London, we decided to meet in Paris. Très romantique, n’est-ce pas? After landing at CDG, I was surprised/not surprised to find that we couldn’t pull up to a gate. I was surprised because we were on a HUGE plane filled with hundreds of passengers (I had connected through Detroit) and not surprised because CDG is always a hot mess of construction. On the Tarmac, we were loaded into a tram/bus thing to get to the main terminal. I wasn’t wild about this, but what are you going to do? Unfortunately, one of my fellow travelers, a little girl who was probably about six years-old, was even less excited. No sooner had she uttered “Je me sens mal” to her mother and she was throwing up all over the back of the tram. It was not awesome. Everyone just kind of looked at each other with grimaces and edged away from the mess. Exactly the kick-off to vacation I was hoping for!

  2. Notre Dame by night.

    The time the baggage carousels were closed. As repeatedly mentioned, I usually carry on luggage. However, when I was traveling to Paris in 2004 to study abroad, I needed a few more pairs of shoes than I usually bring on vacation so I had checked luggage. Upon arrival we were, of course, routed to Customs. I was 20 years-old, completely alone, and not really at a point of mastering my French skills so you can guess how terrifying this was. After clearing Customs, I went to baggage and looked around frantically for a monitor that would tell me which carousel held my bag. As CDG is perpetually under construction, all the carousels were closed. I kid you not. Every single bag was coming out of ONE hole. The chaos was palpable. I still do not understand what travel gods were looking out for me, but the second I deduced what was going on and edged my way to the hole of baggage, my bag came through. I know, it’s a mystery to me, too. Let’s all pause to say a prayer of merci.

  3. The time that new KLM agent lost my luggage. At the end of my study abroad session, my dad came over to visit and we flew home together. When we got to CDG, we queued for check-in at KLM and had an agent who was clearly new on the job. Although a supervisor was theoretically helping her, she still managed to get everything wrong. We were connecting home through Amsterdam and NYC and she booked our bags all the way to Minneapolis. Imagine our surprise at JFK when our bags never showed up and we had to explain to Customs that we weren’t doing anything untoward. Considering the amount of precious cargo I was bringing back stateside, I thought I was going to lose my mind. Not to mention that when we got to Minneapolis, one of the bags was missing altogether (naturally the one with all the expensive wine), and wouldn’t be located and delivered until the following day. Don’t worry, the wine survived.

I should probably note at this point that Paris is my all time favorite city. I could/would/probably should live there.

Still my favorite tourist attraction.

I should also probably note that I flew to CDG about a year ago and everything was running much more smoothly than when I encountered the above situations. Regardless, a million disasters at CDG could never diminish my love of Paris.

If they run out of wine, we may have to reassess.

Of Tarmacs and tears

24 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by in Monday Madness, With love from the Tarmac

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Trip type: Business

Airline: Delta

Route: MSP-ATL

Just when I’d started to think I wouldn’t get any good blog material any time soon due to my last few trips going off with few complications, the gods of travel intervened…If you’ve ever read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, you have a pretty good idea of where this is going.

Fun things that happened on this morning’s 6:30am flight:

1. TSA comedian joked that they wouldn’t be able to get a reading from the full body scanner because I was so short. Hysterical.

2. Six TSA reps visited my gate to check everyone’s photo IDs prior to boarding. Three people got a surprise pat-down. Guess who one of them was.

3. Finally aboard, I’m attempting to put my bag up (read: use my lacking upper body strength to more or less throw my bag toward the overhead bin. Ok, maybe the TSA guy was funny after all.) when I am hit in the head by someone trying to put her bag up across the aisle. (This is where the ‘tears’ part of this entry’s title comes from, btw; she really smacked me good. Don’t worry though, she totally got what was coming to her when I didn’t do the Minnesotan thing and say “That’s ok.” when she apologized. I’m sure she noticed the slight and was duly shamed.)

4. Finally. Let’s get this show on the road.

Alas.

After sitting on the Tarmac idling for about a half hour, the captain finally comes on to tell us that a valve that controls the air is stuck and maintenance has to fix it. We sit for about 10 minutes and then finally head back to the gate. At first we’re told it will be 20 minutes…20 minutes later we’re told it will only be 10 more minutes…this is followed by maintenance deciding it needs 15 more minutes to actually replace the valve (what had they been doing back there anyway??). Finally, we’re told it will only be five more minutes to get the final paperwork produced. Oy gevalt.

As you would imagine, about half the plane is now approaching Defcon Three. There’s a couple behind me going on their honeymoon (connecting to Cancun), the guy next to me is trying to go to Gainesville, and the guy two rows back was apparently going to The Most Important Conference of ALL TIME because it was IMPERATIVE he make his connection, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? Like poor Neil the flight attendant has any control over the damn valve. (Although I did shoot Neil an “Are you f-ing kidding me?” face when he told some woman visiting her granddaughter that “Delta will take care of you.” For the record: Zero gate agents met our flight.)

5. Finally-finally. We’re really going to go this time. The captain promises.

But we do really take-off. Yay! And for all that, we land only about 40 minutes late. They really do pad flying times.

6. Oh yes, there’s more. I get to the car rental center and head to grab a car at National (with status, you can just walk to any aisle and take a car). Inexplicably, National has all American cars…and Jettas. I always take a Jetta. So I find one, walk over, start putting my bag in and an elderly couple approaches me.

Woman: “Why did you choose this car?”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Woman: “We’re trying to decide what car to get but I can’t pick.”

OMG. Is this really happening? The only contact I want to have at the rental car center is with the person at the exit gate. And even then I don’t like to make small talk.

Me: “You know you get to bring it back, right?”

Woman: “But we have to drive it for three days!”

I am dumbfounded but luckily she scoots away to admire a Kia. I did nearly run her over (accidentally! swear!) leaving the parking lot so I feel like we’re even.

And finally, I arrive in glamorous Alpharetta. If only Starbucks offered a shot of Bailey’s.

Boston and the Bar

03 Saturday Sep 2011

Posted by in Cancellation Clusters

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Another from the archives…July 2010.

Trip type: Personal

Airline: Delta

Route: BOS-MSP

For any readers who have taken the Bar exam (or any put-upon spouses who have lived through the fun), you’ll recall (undoubtedly with a shudder) how riddled with anxiety you were in the days leading up to it.

Now imagine that the last weekend before the bar you’re attending one of your best friend’s weddings. Then imagine this:

It’s Sunday, the morning after the wedding, and we’re due to leave Boston on a direct flight home at 6pm (E’s family is on the east coast so we wanted to stay a little longer to spend some time with them). At 11:30, I receive an automated call from Delta saying our flight is canceled and that we’ve been rebooked for tomorrow (aka Monday, aka the day before the Bar) going through Atlanta.

Immediate response: No.

Naturally, I immediately fall apart. I still, however, insist I will be the one to call Delta demanding a better resolution. I call Delta in tears telling them that we must reach Minneapolis tonight. Luckily, they are able to book us on two of the last three seats available. We have to leave almost immediately and connect through Reagan but we should make it home that day.

Off to the airport we go and E suggests we go to the Delta lounge in Boston’s A Terminal for some pre-flight drinks. The A Terminal is broken into two parts with an underground tunnel connecting either side. Our flight was on one side and the lounge was on the other. Nothing can ever be easy.

After a glass (or two…hard to remember) of wine, I’m feeling much better about life in general. We head back to the other side of the terminal to catch our connection to D.C. and find that the tunnel has been shutdown. Completely. As in, we’re on the moving sidewalk and nearly fall into a group of people as we come off of it because everyone has been halted so abruptly.

The crowd is tensely whispering to each other and it’s clear nobody has any idea what’s going on. There are some TSA folks lingering around acting as the barricade keeping us from the other side but they’re tight lipped. About 20 minutes in, I’m ready to have a conniption when they suddenly release the throng. No explanation given but hey, we’re on our way to the gate so I’m willing to let it go.

Finally aboard the Barbie jet, I’m praying we can just get to D.C. and connect home. The plane is so tiny we actually had to climb up the stairs and, as E and I are in the front row, we’re nearly knee-to-knee with the sole flight attendant when she tucks into her jump seat. We’re just about ready to push when she gets a call from the pilots telling her there’s weather trouble in the mid-Atlantic and D.C. is not accepting flights for the foreseeable future. Neat. After another tense 20 minute wait, D.C. apparently reopens and we’re able to leave (it’s funny how long 20 minutes can feel when you have no idea if you’re ever going to move).

We land in D.C. and as we come off the jetway and into the airport I see the telltale signs of a day of terrible mid-Atlantic weather: it looks like a refugee zone. (I ended up chatting with a woman who’d been at Reagan since 8am (it’s about 5pm at this point) trying to get to Atlanta. And she was with a small child. Note to self: It can always be worse.))

Now comes the fun of flying through Reagan where flights are bounced from gate to gate constantly. There were two flights to Minneapolis that afternoon, one at 4pm and one at 7pm. We’re on the 7pm but the 4pm hasn’t even left yet so I’m not feeling very optimistic about an on-time departure. Watching the flight board was useless as our flight went from one gate to another to disappearing altogether at one point. Finally, E suggested we split up and stand in line at each of the two counters we’d variously seen listed as hosting our flight (we needed seat assignments since we’d been added so late to the flight).

As I’m standing in my line across the concourse, I strike up a conversation (obviously) with some guy who tells me he’s a consultant who flies this route every Sunday and has yet to see a flight leave a.) on time, or b.) from it’s originally scheduled gate. Comforting.

Finally, there’s an announcement that the 4pm flight will leave from Gate 12 (where E is in line) at 8pm and the 7pm will leave immediately after). By the grace of g-d, E stays in line despite this announcement and when the gate agent comes back to say that there are 10 extra seats on the flight and the first 10 people in line will get them, the first thing to go right all day does and we get on the plane.

Despite my seatmate telling me the flight is Detroit-bound as some kind of sadistic joke, everything goes smoothly as we head to MSP. Funnily enough, for all the craziness we endured, we end up making it home only an hour later than we would have on our original flight.

(And E passed the bar.)