The plan was simple – leave Amman, Jordan from my vacation
spot with an early morning flight
12:00 (midnight) wake up, pack, take shower and check out
from my hotel, which is about 30 minutes from the airport. Pleasantly surprised
by the nightly fee of US$30, which seems to be typical for a nice clean hotel
in that region.
12:30 – load up rental car and spend 5 minutes with the
Garmin GPS to figure out the route to the airport.
1:00 am – arrive at airport after being lost two times, second
time ending up in a dead-end (nothing beats Google maps, I’ll get a SIMM card
from a local carrier for data browsing on my smartphone next time). I delivered
my car, a nice small French Renault, very convenient and fuel efficient. Rental
is only $150/week.
1:15 – line up for security, tickets in hand, made it
through security but did not make it past an airline employee who is screening
everyone with a scale at his side. My carry-on is too heavy, 12 kg instead of
the allowed 8kg. I’ve never had this happen in other parts of the world, so I
head, back to check-in.
1:30 – Through security, without my carry-on, sit down at
Starbucks to get a latte (did not realize I missed that for more than a week),
and a quiche, checked emails, text my spouse Johanna, who is on her way back
home and is delayed in Chicago.
3:00 – Board plane, which is not full, I can spread out,
skip breakfast and sleep a little.
6:30 – set clock forward to 8:30, as we arrived, but there
is no space. Note that the Abu Dhabi airport is very congested, half of the
planes stay on the tarmac and passengers load and unload through stairs to or
from a bus to get to or from the terminal (so 1980’s)
8:45 – we finally get to deplane. Bus takes forever (It
seems)
8:55 – arrive at terminal, I run to security, of course they
need to check my backpack, (too many wires).
9:05 – run, run, run, zig-zag through the terminal to gate
47
9:10 – arrive at gate, bus is waiting outside to take the
last passengers. I show my boarding pass, but… I have no seat. The gate agent
shows on his computer that I have no seat despite my boarding pass showing 9C!
They obviously gave my seat away to someone else, under the presumption I was
not going to make the connection. I am told to go to the “transfer desk.”
9:20 – The transfer desk is chaos. The best thing when
having to wait is to start up conversations with other travelers around you,
and so I have a nice conversation with two young men from the east coast who
are stranded going to the Himalaya base camp. I told them about my Kilimanjaro
hike 2 years back and they suddenly respect me a lot more.
10:45 – finally, I reach the front of the desk, talking with
an overworked, frustrated airline employee. First flight is a day later, they
are willing to put me up in a hotel and provide transportation. Upon my
request, they give me e-calling card so I can call my party in Kenya that I am
coming a day later.
11:15 – I finally reach the front of line for one of the two
public phones and reach my partner so he can re-arrange my schedule, who was
about to leave for the airport himself.
11:30 – amazing… no line for the passport control, which I
need to pass to get my luggage and go to the hotel.
12:00 – finally get my luggage, they have to request it from
the transfer area (yes, I wish they would not have made me check it.)
12:15 – wait at the chauffeur desk for 15 minutes for
transportation to my hotel. The city of Aby Dhabi is clean, there is construction
everywhere as is common for the Middle East and we pass a huge new mosque,
which looks like a palace.
12:45 – check in at the Hilton hotel, no rooms are clean; I
can go and have lunch instead.
2:00 pm – after a good lunch buffet with Arabic and Indian
dishes, and checking my emails, I finally get to my room and am ready to take a
nap. I should have been in Nairobi instead, but spent another five hours or so
in transit thanks to the airline.
Anyway, this type of incidents happen to me occasionally,
not a lot, about once a year I would say. The majority of my fellow travelers got upset about the
airline overbooking and be outraged at the hassle the mistake causes them. But
I’ve learned that travel is stressful enough and some things I just can’t
control, so why make it worse by venting your anger raising your own blood
pressure, not to mention that of the poor airline employees who simply are
trying to do their job. Instead, I’ve learned that International travel is
about accepting the surprises as opportunities which enables me things to do
and see things that weren’t on the agenda. … I had another day to explore a
city I had never visited before and could enjoy. I walked in a new area, and
took the unscheduled time to get in a stress-reducing workout in an excellent
gym. After all, what is a single day delay in a lifetime journey…
