THANKS DELTA, FOR NOTHING

So I had a flight at 7:30 in the morning; the first leg of a three leg trip and arrived at the airport at 4:30am, because it was an international flight and I wanted to try to upgrade to business class. The fight could not be upgraded even though they had seats. Delta’s policy; you must do it 24 hours in advance. No one told me of the policy when I called. So we were stuck with the original seats. We get to Minnesota and we board our next plane only to sit on the plane for 5 hours while they take care of mechanical problems. It finally was fixed, and then an announcement is made that the Stewards were timed out and new crew had to come and take over. Did they not know that this would happen while we sat on the plane for 5 hours? Of course they did. But Better yet and an hour and a half latter, the pilots were timed out as well. Then the whole flight was cancelled. Again did they not know that this was going to occur? Why did they not request new pilots when they were getting a new crew. Why did they not let us off after five hours instead of us being made to wait an additional hour and a half? Why because they did not want to spend the money. They thought our time and our plans was nothing compared to their bottom line. Of course we missed our connection.

So we had to stay in Minnesota for the evening. We could not get our luggage, unless we agreed to stay and wait five hours for it to come out. So no luggage. We were also told that our luggage would be on the flight that they would put us on which was scheduled for the same time the following day as the one cancelled and that we’d be put on the same connection, Korean Air, to get to Hanoi. We did get on the same flight the next day, only because I was the second in line for customer service when we got off the plane. The line behind me at customer service was at least a hundred people long. Needless to say not all of them got on the flight the next day.

Next day we arrived at the airport to get our boarding passes and the lines were out the door due to all the flights that were cancelled due to the blizzard that came through during the evening. Oh, did I not tell you that during all this a blizzard was predicted to appear that evening. The snow was coming down and I was in open toe shoes and a three quarter sleeve shirt. Well when I got out of the airport it was freezing and when I returned in the morning there was a foot and a half of snow. I was still wearing the same outfit. It took 2 hours to get our boarding tickets and lo and behold we were no longer on Korean Air, but on Asiana Air to get to Hanoi. Okay, no problem as long as we get to Hanoi.

Next we had to go through security. That line again was outrageously long and I started to ask people if we could get in front of them or we would miss the plane. They were so nice in Minnesota we got to the front pretty fast. Just like it would have been if we were in Miami! LOL. we enter the plane and we sit on the runway for over an hour and a half. Why should it be any different the next day. We finally take off and arrive in Soul, Korea. The gate our plane was suppose to debark at still had a plane sitting there, so sit and wait again we do.

We finally get on the plane for Hanoi with no time to waste. We are exhausted. We stayed up the night we were leaving; thinking that we would start to get ready for the time change. And you all know how it is to sleep on a plane. Hanoi is eleven hours ahead of us. We get to Hanoi only to find out that only one of the four bags we checked in arrived. So we spent the next hour making a claim for our lost luggage. What an un wanted experience.

We find some of our group members and take the scheduled van to arrive at our new apartment for the month at close to midnight. We drop our bags and run out across the street to get something to eat. We sit on small chairs the size of which you would find in a kindergarten room at a table that other Vietnamese people are sitting at and we order Pho and ate it right on the city street. Not bad Pho, actually pretty good. Made right there out on the street. Surprisingly we did not get sick.

And finally we will start our new adventure in Hanoi, Vietnam. Life has its ups and downs, but that is what life is all about! So live each day as if it were your last. Life is not merely surviving!!!

Oh, we did finally get our luggage three days later!!!! Thank you Delta!