I am supposed to be in Phoenix right now.
Where am I?
Minneapolis.
This story begins on Sunday late night when I find myself sick and not able to fly. So I delay my Monday morning flight till Tuesday (I am supposed to be doing a keynote tomorrow for Astricon at 9AM).
Sick in this context is nice fever and a good pounding headache.
So Tuesday morning I get up in Riga and make the flight to Amsterdam. What do I discover? The ticketing agent reticketed for the next day but did so with a paper ticket.
I obviously lack a paper ticket.
I get the agent in Amsterdam to reissue the paper ticket as an e-ticket. She hands me the boarding pass and then mentions to me "you have twenty minutes". I run across the airport, make it through passport control, and then get questioned by the US agent at the plane about my ticket and my "why are you out of breath?".
I make the flight, all is good.
Except that when I get to Minneapolis, which is where I fly through to get to Phoenix, the plane is not allowed to land because of weather. So what happens? They reroute the airplane to Dilluth (which started a small disagreement with the people around me over which state it is in). The plane lands, but because of the storm they won't refuel it. So we are stuck on the plane for... six hours. Finally we fly back to Minneapolis where I am told when I get off the plane "if I run I can make the final flight to Phoenix".
So run I do... this is not a small airport.
Fever, headache? All have returned by this point.
So after running to the security gate I discover that they had not given me a boarding pass, just an itinerary . TSA will have nothing of this. No boarding pass, no entrance.
I travel a lot, I have old boarding passes in my backpack. I just hand them one.
They accept it.
I am pretty sure it was for a foreign airport.
From the security point I run to G gate.
Guess what?
The plane is just locking the door and according to the gate agent there were no free seats.
I go out now to ask the ticket agent what to do.
I get a "Come back tomorrow."
Oh, and a "because it is weather we do not give free hotel rooms".
I call my travel agent who says everything is booked for tomorrow.
They get me a hotel room, it has free wireless.
Want to guess what my next action was?
I wonder if I can get meal and a bottle of aspirin from room service.