Out Of Addis - Long Trip

They say you don’t need to reconfirm flights anymore for British Airways, but I say it’s always a good idea to drop by the office when you’re in Addis Ababa. I recalled that my flight time was changed when leaving the country on Lufthansa 3 years ago – Addis isn’t exactly a hub, so schedules fluctuate w/ demand – so I planned on checking on my flight a couple days before leaving; turns out it was only about 16 hours before leaving and my flight had been bumped up a day, with BA paying for a night in London before I catch the second-leg to New York.

This schedule change also added an extra destination to the trip, as I’m now writing from the tarmac in Alexandria, Egypt. I’m watching outside as they refuel and we should be leaving for Heathrow any minute. Funny, when we were in the air the pilot announced that we’d be on the ground in Alexandria for 45 minutes. We landed and kind of tooled around the airport for 20 minutes, then the pilot came back over the PA and said, “that’s right ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be on our way to London in 45 minutes, right on schedule…”

What’s worth any delay though is the fact that I got to see the pyramids on the way in. It’s a gorgeous day and they were illuminated in the sun on the edge of the Nile as we followed the river north. Very nice. Basically in the middle of the desert now at the airport though without much to see. Am realizing that this is my first brush with such arid conditions on this whole trip. Huh, and you would of thunk this whole continent was scorched and dusty…

So that was what I was writing from the tarmac in Alexandria, Egypt. By the time I got to London, the schedule had seriously changed. (Oh, more high-comedy over the flight PA: before we took off from Alexandria, with new passengers on board – I still had an entire row to myself – the following was actually said regarding in flight entertainment: “Our first-class travelers will be able to choose between a number of films, television shows, and news and sports for entertainment on channels one through eights and the rest of our passengers will have…on the main screen…[fumbling and totally off the script at this point]…a movie…yes, a movie.”) The British Airways folks in Heathrow told me that there was space on the next flight to New York and that they wouldn’t pay for my night in London, that being the case. So, I book-it to the other side of the airport, fail at attempting to change my Jet Blue flight that won’t leave New York for another 30hrs., and am on a plane trying to find phone numbers of people I know in New York City.

At JFK after some sleep and manage to change the Jet Blue flight, but can only leave a message on a friend’s voice mail to pick me up, a day early, at the Syracuse airport. Luckily I returned home to a big hug at the airport from two friends who had to leave the bar at midnight to come get me a day earlier than expected. I spent 16 hours in the air during a day of travel that started at 5am and ended at 12am the same day, yet there were 27 hours in between…not sure where that puts my speed of life, but I think I almost maxed out.