How not to cross the Atlantic

As some of you may have heard, Europe was a bit of a mess last week with respect to air travel. Several airports in northern Europe got unusual amounts of snow, which is to say that they got some snow. That's why Stace and the kids got stuck in Switzerland for an extra couple of days (but the skiing was good). As the week moved on, I started to worry about my own trip to Utah on Friday. I was scheduled to go through Paris on my way to Salt Lake, and they were expecting more snow in Paris as the week went on.

I started checking Delta's website for a "weather waiver," which means that you can switch your itinerary without paying a fee. Wednesday night, Delta finally issued a waiver that would cover my trip. I called Delta right away to see if they could get me out on Thursday rather than Friday. My preferred route would have been Zurich to Atlanta and Atlanta to Salt Lake, thus avoiding northern Europe altogether; unfortunately, there wasn't any room on those flights.

I instead took a schedule that had me going from Zurich to Amsterdam to Minneapolis to Salt Lake. It involved a five-hour layover in Minneapolis. Ugh. I would have landed in Salt Lake at about midnight Utah time. I decided that was better than trying to get through Paris on Friday, though. I couldn't get a rental car out of Salt Lake on Thursday, and I didn't want someone to have to pick me up at midnight and then run me back to the airport the next day to get the rental car, so I made a reservation at a hotel near the airport. I figured I could stay there Thurday night and get the car at the airport on Friday.

I frantically packed everything on Wednesday night and got ready for bed. I checked the website one more time before I went to bed, and lo and behold, the Atlanta route had opened up. Suddenly, everything changed again. I spent a long time on the phone trying to get things worked out with the airline. There were some issues with the ticket that I wouldn't be able to work out until I got to the airport in Zurich. I cancelled my hotel in Salt Lake and switched the car reservation again. After all of that, I got to bed at 2:30 a.m. with my alarm set for 5:00. Ugh. This violated Ethan's First Rule of Flying West Across the Atlantic Ocean: "Get a good night's sleep before you go. You'll be sorry if you don't." I knew I'd pay the price on the other side, but that's how it goes.

So, after getting my two and a half hours of sleep, I got up and headed for the airport, unsure of whether I would actually be getting on a plane. I was able to get things worked out with the ticket, but I was pretty fried by the time I got to the airport. As I got on the plane to fly from Zurich to Atlanta, though, I experienced my own little Christmas miracle: the heavens opened, a choir of angels began to sing, and the boarding pass scanner spat out a little piece of paper that said that I'd been upgraded to business class for the ten-hour flight to Atlanta. Never had an upgrade been so welcome.

I got to Atlanta without further trouble and went to the gate for my connecting flight. In a throwback to the way that Stace and I used to fly for free before having kids, the flight was overbooked, and Delta was looking for volunteers to bump to the next flight. I thought at first that I'd have to overnight it at a hotel in Atlanta, which was fine with me at that point, but it turned out that they were able to get me on the next flight just two hours later. That was worth a $400 travel voucher to me and a free dinner at the Atlanta airport. So, the bottom line is that I arrived at the home of Stace's folks about 25 hours after getting two and a half hours of sleep. Needless to say, I was fairly wasted during the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day family gatherings over the next couple of days. I think I'm finally over jet lag today. We'll see.