Well, after an eventful week I finally managed to place a foot on English soil late last night. I had originally been scheduled to fly into London last Sunday but some storms over St Louis and Chicago soon put a stop to that. I have to be honest here, whilst all the other passengers complained profusely about the fact their travels had been delayed I practically skipped out of the terminal with the most ridiculous smile on my face. I'd planned to head home a week before the start of school. I have a new job to begin and wanted to be fully adjusted to UK time with a perfectly set up classroom before thirty small people joined me. During the summer I had wondered wether i'd made the right choice to go home a whole week early. Nick asked if I could extend the trip but we decided it was best not as it would have cost extra and we are trying to be spend sensibly.
Sunday came and I really didn't feel ready to leave, fortunately the storms bought us some time and I was able to reschedule a new flight for Tuesday. At this point I could have rescheduled for a flight nearer the end of the week but I knew that I had a family welcome home party to attend for my sister who was returning from two months in the Outback. I was just thrilled to give Nick a call and tell him that I would be coming back home for a night. It might sound silly but one extra day is something really precious when time spent with someone is something that only comes every few months.
Tuesday wound round quickly and we made our second trip to Lambert St Louis International for the week. We arrived at the car park and it was packed! This probably should have been the first tell tale sign that something wasn't right because this airport is never packed. After finally finding a spot we made our way into the terminal to find the longest, snaking queue of people you have ever seen waiting to check in. As it turned out, this was my queue for United Airlines! Incase you didn't catch the news, United Airlines had some trouble this week when all of its computer systems crashed worldwide. All flights were grounded and nobody was able to print boarding passes or check in electronically. At one point check in attendants began writing out hand written boarding passes. This isn't something that fills you with the most confidence when about to board a plane.
Well we waited, and waited, and gradually as the time went on I successfully managed to miss both my flight to Chicago and the connection to London. At this point I began to get increasingly nervous when considering that if all passengers flying with United globally have been affected by the system outage how could they possibly reschedule and fit in everyones new reservations. There was noway of rescheduling a new flight until systems were working again and no time frame on how long it would take to fix the problem. How would I get home? Luckily the systems opened that evening and after spending two hours on the phone to an agent I finally managed to convince United that I really wasn't very happy about making the only flight they had available (a two day, two stop connection to London via Washington DC and Frankfurt, Germany) and I was transfered to an alternative airline for the third and final rescheduled flight home for the week.
Well the outcome of all this had its good and bad sides! I ended up spending the maximum amount of time with Nick as possible and didn't have to pay to extend the trip, but I did miss the welcome home party which I feel terribly for considering all the effort that was put into making it just lovely! I was also left with one day to set up a classroom on a couple of hours sleep and a good dose of jet lag and Nick may have to take out a second mortgage on airport parking fees.
As one can tell from the time of posting, i've not quite made it into the time zone yet. I should be asleep but I have some pictures to share of the beautiful house i've just left that can't wait!
