Can I get frequent flier miles for trips to the airport?
Due to heavy snow the one hour drive to the airport took three hours this morning. One car came around a corner and did a full sideways skid. No one was actually physically injured; it's my mantra for the day.
We were the first in line at the ticket counter, where we were told that United had booked our flights on Air France, but not provided ticket numbers. The Air France reservation desk clerk told me I needed to talk with United. "Isn't that easier for you to do?" I asked her. How can I call United from Moscow? I tried the only United desk in Moscow, the one at the other airport and the person there told me they don't speak English, in Russian, and hung up on me.
I called Peter's front desk person, who was awesome, and got us scheduled on the next Air France flight. Which was cancelled. She dogged United for plan, what is this by now? Plan D, E or um, F? They put us on a flight from Moscow to Beijing, then Beijing to San Francisco. We went to get our boarding passes and the person there told me the flight was full. "I have to write this down," I said, and on my print-out of the other flights we've waited hours for in the airport and not gotten on, I pencilled: flight full.
They've scheduled us on the same flight for tomorrow. Camille and I agree that it's too much and we don't even want to go anymore. Stefan wants to try one more time.
I'd given the last of my cash to the guy who helped us with our bags, so I was ruble-less and needed to get back into town. And from this airport–Moscow's biggest, finest international airport–you can't pay for a taxi with a credit card. A friend drove an hour and a half in the dark, in the snow to rescue us. Add Dr. Larry Padget to the long line of rescue workers helping us this trip.
When we lived in Niger, people would complain about the weather back home, I'd email them a photo of the Embassy thermometer showing 130F degrees. This winter when people say, "It's so cold here!" I've have played my, "It's -17F in Moscow!" card. Tomorrow I'm doing the art work for my worst travel story card, it's going to be in Chinese, it's going to have multiple baggage stickers from going through the xray so many times, and I'll show the total amount of money I've spent to not get out town, how on our second try in three days we spent ten hours fifteen minutes in transit, and ended up back to our apartment in Moscow. I'm so tired and we haven't even left yet.
As a group of people in warm-up suits got off one plane today, they were greeted by a crowd with flowers, banners, waving flags and a full-on marching band. That's what we deserve if we ever land in SF. If I don't physically injure anyone.
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 
Leave a comment