Step 6 of the Journey - Traveling

I would have posted this on the 28^th, but we were just too tired…

Well, today January 27th we got up at 6am and could not go back to sleep.  We were both so excited.  We got everything looked up on the web.  I printed out maps for Detroit and Amsterdam, so I had an idea of where we needed to go and what shops we could visit.

Our cab arrives and we head to the airport.  Checked our bags, smooth.  Got to security…. Extra smooth.  Had an hour and a half wait for our plane to arrive.  I (Wayne) found a smoking area in the airport, (yes bad habit)… it cost me $4 to go inside, but I needed it.  I came back to the terminal waiting for the plane to arrive.  We watched the plane arrive and then a few minutes later there is announcement “there is a problem with the plane.  There is a computer that is not functioning and there is no part in this airport.”  The swarm to the counter begins.  We hear that the part will be coming from Atlanta and should arrive by 2pm.  After an hour of waiting to get to the counter, we are directed to another gate for “standby.”  So we head to that line, wait for another 15 minutes and we are told there flight is completely overbooked and they are not even accepting “standby’s.”  So back to the other counter… were we are told the part should arrive by 2pm and it should only take 10-15 minutes for repair; but of course this is only estimations.

So we waited and waited and then around 2pm we hear that it could be another hour or more before departure.  So we got back in line again because now we knew we would likely miss our connecting flight in Detroit.  The very nice man at the counter spent an hour and a half on the phone with Delta International to try to find us another route to LT since the flight from Amsterdam doesn’t go everyday.   We had Peg’s mom’s itinerary showing she was flying from Frankfort to Vilnius so he worked on getting us to Frankfurt in time to make that connection.  So we boarded the extremely late flight to Detroit and landed there around 6:45PM Eastern.  The flight to Frankfurt, Germany leaves at 7:20 PM; so after speed walking/running 23 gates later we were out of breath but boarding the plane for Germany.  However this flight did not leave on time, we had to de-ice the plane and that took about an hour.  We are writing this while on the plane from Detroit to Frankfurt, on the screen it showing our arrival time fluctuate with the wind changes praying that we make it to Frankfurt to meet up with mom and get on the plane to Vilnius at 10:50AM Frankfurt.  The one funny thing about this is mom has no idea that we have been rerouted to join up with her.  Peg says she is probably going to cry when she sees us.  She was very nervous about having to fly alone.  Well the movie is coming on and we need to get some sleep.  Hopefully this post will end with us landing in LT when planned. 

Uhhh, no that didn’t happen.  We arrived in Frankfurt and ran through the airport like crazy people only to get to the gate for our connection to Vilnius and the captain had just closed the doors and they won’t re-open them.  So they directed us to the Lufthansa ticket counter to get rerouted yet again.  So we go there and wait, to find out we are in the wrong place and need to go to the Delta counter since it was the late Delta flight that made us miss the connection.  It took about an hour and half to get rebooked to another flight… with yet another connection and layover.  The Delta agent informs us that we need to leave right now, in order to make it to our new gate.  Really?  We had an hour and 20 minutes to make it to our gate; but we left when we did, of course they gave us the wrong directions, but we started that way again (Terminal 1 Gates).  I am glad we didn’t stop for food or a smoke, because that walk took us that long to get down to gate 38.  When we got to the gate we had 20 minutes to spare.  There was no free Wi-Fi in the airport, but we had to get in touch with our person picking us up at the airport in Vilnius.  So I boot up, find the T-Mobile Hotspot; put in my credit card info for an hours use… then my laptop battery dies.  OMG, so I break out the power converter (220 outlets here) and hook up the power.  I type up 2 quick e-mails; I get them sent and then we are on a plane to Tallinn, Estonia.

2 hours later we land in Tallinn, and we de-board.  We get our transfer for the next plane (which it will be boarding from the same gate).  We now have 1hour and 30 minutes to relax.  The best and cheapest news we find is Wi-Fi is free in the airport.  So the e-mails start flying and I find a place for a smoke.  Yes, yes; I am supposed to be quitting, but wouldn’t you be smoking too after going through all of this nerve racking stuff?

After corresponding e-mails with my sister-in-law and a trying to track down my mother in-law (we hope she is going to arrive today at 13:40 LT time); we started to relax.  Until the plane to Vilnius arrives… it looks like a damn puddle jumper.  So we walk out to the tarmac and board the plane.

We ARRIVE in Vilnius at 20:50 and go to get our bags and they are not on the carousel.  There is only one bag there and it is not one of ours.  So the lady comes over and informs us that are bags are not here.  So she tracks them down… any guesses where they are at?  Hmmm anybody; well the correct answer is Detroit, MI, U.S.A.  They tell us we might get our bags by Sunday 30 January 2011.  We had some clothes packed on our carry on’s, but not enough.  So the pants I wore for 24 hours on the way over, I get to wear for another 36-48 hours.

More news to come later.