Monday, April 04, 2011

Around The World in 21 Days. Day 1.

Sunday.  The first day of my round-the-world trip to meet clients and team members.  Day 1: United 930 to London departing at 7pm and then connecting onto Lufthansa for Munich and then, finally, Nice.


At SFO


I've been sitting in the lounge for 3 hours now, having come to the airport early to get work done in a sane, quiet atmosphere.  With two kids at home, yes, really, going to the airport can be peaceful.  After writing a ton of email, I decide I better get up and walk around a bit before sitting on my rear for 10 hours.

Just as I'm leaving, I get a phone call from United.  They say I'm scheduled to fly to Frankfurt tonight, but I have not checked in.  Am I planning on coming?  No, I say.  I'm going to London.  Now I'm worried, is my reservation messed up? Did I forget something really important - like what flight I am on?  No, they say, just some confusion in the record.  They will clean it up.

I put it out of my mind and go for a walk.  My goal, cover the international terminal front to back before getting on the plane. I put on some music and walk out.  40 minutes and three terminals later, I'm back wondering towards my gate.

I go down and inquire about the all-important upgrade - they have just started boarding.  Somehow, I'm auto-pilot because I don't even notice that I'm not at the right gate.  London in 97, but I'm here, inexplicably, at gate 92, which is the flight to Frankfurt.

Fortunately, they've been looking for me.  The flight to London is overbooked and they wanted to offer me an upgrade on the flight to Frankfurt, complete with earlier connection and arrival in Nice 2 hours sooner, so I'm on.  The gate agent prints me new boarding passes and asks me if I'd like a revised copy of my itinerary.  Sure, I say, so she prints it out.  She takes one look at it and hands it to me. "You're insane," she says.

Nice views over the Alps


On the plane: Half a glass of champagne, some warm nuts, and I'm down to sleep for 7 hours.




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