At the Airport

Arrived at the airport promptly at 11:00am - all glory goes to my driver, thanks Dad! I approached the counter with some trepidation. Silly me. Behind the counter there were four employees. One of them was helping a customer and the other three appeared to be talking about a tv show. It only took about five minutes to be called up to the desk. Less than two minutes later I was walking to the gate. No problems and no explanation as to why I was not allowed to print my pass from home. I kept my mouth shut the whole time. I think this is a wise course of action and I make a promise to myself to try not to ask questions of anyone in the travel industry. Questions tend to make things go downhill.

At the gate, I see the plane is delayed. I ask the man at the counter why the delay. Hmmm, my promise lasted all of 15 minutes. Will have to work on this. Weather is the reply. Weather in Chicago. I ask if there are any upgrades available. I don't plan on actually upgrading, but I figured I will distract the man with another question before he sees my irritation at having to wait even longer for the trip to be started. My question backfires. He convinces me to buy 5 extra inches for my flight from DC to Amsterdam. Smooth talker that man was. I tried to get the extra inches in width but it was not to be.

Finally, the flight from Chicago arrives and we board. Boarding was fun. I felt like I was back in the old days. The passengers were broken into two groups. Group one boarded normally and group two, my group, went on to the tarmac and board via the back of the plane. My trip finally begins at 2:25 pm.