TGIW !?!

Yay for a 4 day weekend!

I am so excited to not go into the office tomorrow or Friday (Technically I'm on call and will have to work on Saturday and Sunday for a few hours, but at least it's not all day long). I have sooo much sewing and housework to do, it'll be nice to have a couple days at home to get stuff done! I may even brave the stores this weekend to try to get some names crossed off my list (anyone want to join me?)

In the past, I've posted a few times about my crazy travel stories... well Caleb and the band have officially topped most all of them in the last two days. This is what he told me last night: They were supposed to fly from the Chicago airport yesterday around noon to Atlanta where they would transfer to the flight to Amsterdam. They get to the airport with plenty of time and found that their flight was delayed about 30 minutes. Worried about the delay causing them to miss their connection, the airport lady switched them onto a direct flight on another airline. Nice, right? Well, no. Her supervisor came over and wouldn't allow it, because their luggage could no longer be removed from the original flight. So they were switched back to their original flight. Which has now started to board. They discover 2 things- 1. The delay was caused by a funny gas smell in the cabin which after being investigated, was found to be nothing problematic, except really smelly. and 2. They had been bumped to the end of the boarding line and by the time they got on, there was no overhead bin space available and so the 3rd guy, jon's saxophone had to be taken to the back of the plane. So at this point, they were delayed 30 minutes and would have roughly 40 minutes to board their next flight. But no.... at that moment Atlanta airport was blocking all departures and arrivals due to a computer glitch. So now, they are sitting on a plane in Chicago that smells like gas for an hour and a half, knowing that they will absolutely for sure miss their connection.

So they finally land, Ashton rushes off immediately to get in line to get a new flight for them, while CB and Jon wait for the plane to empty so they can get the saxophone from the back. Ashton gets them a flight through Copenhagen, he heads over there (a shuttle to a different terminal) and arrives right at the end of boarding. He lets them know that two more are on their way but they close the door anyway about 1 minute before CB and Jon arrive. Is that strike 3 then? So they get in the REALLY long line (if you can imagine that there is only 1 desk with 2 people serving everyone involved) and wait to get to the front. They are told (probably at least 1-2 hours after landing) that there is a possibility of flying standby through London in a couple hours. So they wait at the airport and when the flight time nears they go back to the desk. At some point in the last couple hours, the 10 spots that had been available have now been shrunken down to 2. The lady at the desk actually tried to make two of them fly the standby to London and leave the 3rd to wait until the next afternoon. How horrible is that? They explained that they are a band and can not travel separately (who would seriously ask someone to stay behind an entire day with a 9 hour flight involved?!) and right in front of them she called the next people and said- you lost your chance. Strike 4 then? And that was the last cross Atlantic possibility for the night, so they are given Delta airline t-shirts and toiletry kits (to make up for no luggage), some food, beverage, headphone, hotel and internet vouchers and sent away. How exhausting. Here's hoping the rest of the tour goes WAY better. It can only go up from there, right? Today's travels went off without a hitch and he should be landing in Amsterdam in about 2 hours.