Tuesday, August 3, 2010

60 Hours in Transit

...is a very long time.

I said goodbye to Jesse, Megan, and Jordan at O'hare international airport Saturday before my flight at noon, flew to Charlotte (next to a wonderfully friendly woman named Annette who is an artist in a family of artists from Florida), boarded my overnight-over-the-atlantic-ocean flight at 5:30pm (next to the most worldy-traveled man I have ever met named Willem who is a german engineer who has been on over 1,500 flights in his lifetime), and arrived in Munich Germany at 8:30am Sunday morning. After being informed my 9:30 flight would be delayed, I was then stuck in a long unexpected layover while crews tried to repair the plane that had engine troubles. 4 Hours later I was informed they would not be able to fix the plane and we would have to rebook at the service desk. There was a mad rush to the line, I luckily got in the front half and *only* had to wait 1 1/2 hours, just to find out there would be no more chances to get to Cairo that night. Luftansa airlines booked me a room at the Shariton near the airport; so I went to grab my luggage, unpack a fresh outfit, and recheck my bags for my flights the next day. I enjoyed the hotel; I was a "preferred special guest" and had a really really nice room and meals paid for which I enjoyed with the company of an engineer I met from Florida (oddly, from Tampa as well as Annette the artist; small world). The next morning I got up, and headed back to Munich airport and left for Istanbul.. yes Turkey.. at 8:45am. I arrived in Istanbul and caught my connector to Cairo on Egyptair flight at 12:30. Arrived in Cairo, finally, at 4pm. My bags however, stayed in Istanbul. Where they still are, over 24 hours later. But at this point, after 60 hours of being in transit, luggage is a very minor detail, and luckily for me, my roomate, Penny, had clothes I could borrow until my bags come.. soon.. insha'allah..........

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