Coming Home
It seems strange to post about coming home before I post about my actual trip. Deal with it.
I have never flown out of Iceland before, so I worried. (I'm getting really good at that.) But Trish (my traveling companion), showed me this handy table that the FlyBus had that showed us we would get to the airport on time, so that helped a lot. Instead, I worried that they would forget us. (see what I said about being good at worrying?)
We had to be a bus stop 8 at 6 am. They actually didn't come until 6:25, which just gave me extra time to worry. Not to mention "enjoy" my last experience of Iceland wind.
I fell asleep on the bus to the airport (it takes an hour), but Trish was able to get this photo of the Reykjanes volcano.
We get to the terminal exactly 2 hours before the flight takes off which was 9:20 am, so I can let go of that worry at least. But we must check in at the Kiosk, and there are only 2 of them, labelled Delta flights only, and they are occupied by people who are not flying Delta. An agent gets them to the proper kiosk and we check in. Just as I take my boarding pass and baggage tag to the agent, the flight gets cancelled.
I talk to an agent, who says I am probably scheduled on the flight for tomorrow, but there is a Icelandair flight leaving this afternoon, and I should go check with Icelandair. The Icelandair agent says he can do nothing because Delta has to change it on their end. I end up standing around with complete strangers so we can all worry together. I muse aloud that I should download the Delta App, and someone says it isn't working. Wonderful. I sign on to the airport Wi-Fi to email Jack (It's midnight at home) to give him a heads up. And I find an email from Delta saying I'm rescheduled for the Icelandair flight at 4:45 that afternoon. And, miracle of miracles, I can make my flight to Pasco! (Perks of being a Delta skymiles member. Next time I travel, I'm becoming a member of every airline I travel with!)
I can make the last flight because of a 10 hour layover in Minneapolis, which I was going to spend with Connie and Dean. Well, now I only have 3.5 hours. So I prepare so spend some time at the Iceland airport, since I am not going back to Reykjavik and experience Iceland's wind.
Just so you know, it is 560 steps around the check-in areas of the airport and it takes 7 minutes to make that circuit.
And there is a place I can get coffee and breakfast. (Next time I'm gone for this long, I'm going to give up coffee. Half of what I had on the trip was substandard, and several were absolutely deplorable. Even worse than Pepsi.)
At 12:30 I check in for my flight, and I discover that my bags are only checked in through Minneapolis, there are no stickers printed that go on random places on my bag, and no baggage claim check. Plus it only printed a boarding pass for the first flight. OK, not to worry, the agent will fix that.
In the meantime, I talk to a woman originally from Pakistan, now living in New York. We chat about all sorts of things, including exchange students (somehow they always come up when talking to people in airports), emergency room visits, the weather, the fact that I'm from Washington the State and not DC (that comes up a LOT). That conversation continued until security, in fact.
The helpful Icelandair agent said that I had glued my claim check to the baggage tag. (That's what you get when amateurs are in charge of things.) But they have no agreement with Delta about handling baggage, so I will have to retrieve my bag in Minneapolis and check in for the Delta flight there. And, since I have 3.5 hours, that is plenty of time.
Good news! I get to worry again!
So, armed with a baggage tag applied by a professional, I head off to security. I spent most of my Icelandic crowns on 2 t-shirts and a puffin and lunch. I only have 522 crowns left, so I'm pretty proud of myself.
I have to go downstairs for the gate...and the helpful agent says there are no bathrooms down here, I have to go back upstairs. Fine. This time I talk to a young man from Sweden who is spending the year at a University in the Minneapolis area. And of course we talk about being an exchange student! He also doesn't understand how people can live in 40 C weather (that's 104 F). Minneapolis is only 90 right now, but it feels hotter due to the humidity. I kindly agreed with him, but did not inform him that he will learn to live in the heat in, well, 7 hours.
We scan our boarding passes, then we go upstairs, then we go downstairs, (really?) and then we board a bus to the plane.
I'm actually seated on a row that is next to the official exit! So I plot, for the last half hour of the flight, how to get to my bags and be off the plane efficiently because I am still worried about how fast I can negotiate the Minneapolis airport.
In the meantime, there were no clouds over the southern tip of Greenland, and I have these pictures:
So, after sleeping for 2 half hours, watching "Oppenheimer" and "Big Bang Theory" and finally getting some knitting in, (it was so hot in Brno and Vranov that knitting with wool just wasn't an attractive option), we land in Minneapolis. And I am first off the plane! (This has never happened before!) And I am first in customs! (this has happened before) And I am first at baggage claim! However, my bag was NOT first. But I was not worried yet.
Then I realize I am in terminal 2 and I need to go to terminal 1. First I had to wait for a tram that also went to downtown Minneapolis. (A helpful stranger told me it would stop at Terminal 1 first.) Then I had to go through an unmarked hallway and down an escalator to get another tram to the Departures part of the terminal. That opened into another marked (good!) hallway, up some escalators, through some doors, and finally to Delta check-in. (If I had known that it would take so long, I would have worried harder earlier. Oh well, lost opportunities.) I honestly lost track of all the escalators and stairs. Finally, armed with my boarding pass to Pasco, I can banish my last worry - that the flight would be oversold and I would have to stay overnight in Minneapolis. I did have one pair of clean underwear and socks, and even a clean t-shirt (from the airport in Iceland), so I pretty much ensured that wouldn't happen.
Well, to finish up, I got home on time (midnight, PDT, 7 GMT), although I didn't sleep on the flight and probably only slept 4 hours total after being up for 27 hours. But since nothing was scheduled, it didn't matter and I didn't worry about that.
But I didn't get to see Connie and Dean. However, I have a voucher from Delta that will cover most of the cost of that flight!
posted by Marion @ 8:42 PM
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