Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Papa's on the road

Hey folks...So I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor of the airport in Asunción, Paraguay, at 6:48 in the morning. I'm supposed to be at a scheduled event to kick off my Fulbright Exchange Program uruguay leg in Montevideo in two hours and twelve minutes. I got a sneaking suspicion that that ain't happening.

How did I come to be in this pickle? Well, you may recall (or not - don't think I was blogging much then) that I applied for and was awarded a spot in this program. During their summer (February), Uruguayan teachers come to observe our schools and stay with an American counterpart. That part happened successfully - Natalia Ximeno came and lived with us for a coupe of weeks, and got to see the insides and talk to key folks at a number of our local schools. Including LMMHS, where I teach. Now it's my turn to reciprocate.

The Fulbright Commission bought me a ticket for Sunday the 15th. I was to take off from JFK in NYC at 5:25 PM, going to Miami, whence a flight would leave for Uruguay at 11:11 PM. I checked into it, and the Commission wouldn't reimburse for leaving the car at the airport, nor for a driver to get me there. But they WOULD reimburse train travel. So on Sunday, we piled into the car, all four of us, and drove to the Albany-Rensselear Amtrak station. I printed out my ticket for NYC, and after waving goodbye to the family for three to four weeks, I rolled out of the station.

So far, so good. Arrived as scheduled at Penn Station, walked to the Long Island Railroad, bought a $5 ticket to the Jamaica stop; got off there, walked up to the Skytrain stop, bought a $6 ticket, and rode in to Gate 8. (It's so fresh in my mind!) Checked in and walked to my gate area. It was about 2:30 at this point. A little early, but if I'd taken a later train from Albany, it would have been cutting it too close.

So we board the plane, and we just sit there. I'm informed that it's because we have to wait for some people to make this connecting flight from flights that were themselves delayed earlier for some reason. I suppose I don't have a huge problem with that, and wait patiently. I had plenty of time to make my connection in Miami, anyway.

That was the key moment right there. Because when we finally tried to roll out, we couldn't, due to some sort of traffic issue at the airport that I didn't understand. And then we couldn't because the weather had gotten bad in Miami. And then three hours on the tarmac had passed, and we rolled back to the gate, where I got out and bought a turkey wrap.

Back on the plane, with no promise that we'd even be able to fly. Miami had cleared up, but as we sat on the tarmac, the pilot announced that there was now a storm in NYC, which wasn't going to allow the ground crews out to get the plane going. So now the weather locally wasn't letting us go! We sat there for nearly another three hours - when we finally took off, at 11:46 PM, only 18 more minutes would have meant we'd have had to go back to the gate. Bleah.

Of course I already knew I would have missed my flight, but I figured they'd set me up with another one when I got there. How long would I possibly have to wait, anyway?

Two days, turns out. Well, one day - it was now 2:20 in the morning on Monday, and they weren't going to be able to get me on Monday's (direct) 11:11 flight to Montevideo, but they could get me on the Tuesday night one. Meaning I wouldn't even get to Montevideo until Wednesday morning, and the program was set to kick off Tuesday morning at 9:00 AM.

I was doing all this on the phone, by the way. She put me on the Tuesday night flight, and I started to ask where I was going to sleep until then, but she said that she couldn't take care of that, that someone in person would have to do it. So I set off to find an agent.

They didn't open until 4:00 AM. And when they open, they open in order to walk over to Starbucks and get coffee. Nobody actually waved me to a window until about 4:20.

Where I explained the problem, being as nice as I could muster, knowing that this person could make things go dramatically better for me, or draatically worse.

It's been a while, and I'm not sure which she did.

No direct flight - but I could go to Panama at 9:30 that morning, to Lima at 3:00 that afternoon, and then to Montevideo at 10:00 that night, putting me in Montevideo a full day ahead of where I'd be i f I stayed with the reservation I'd already made.

I jumped at the offer, and had uneventful, on-time rides to all three destinations.

Except Montevideo, because about an hour out, they announced that Montevideo was fogged in.

Fogged.

In.

And we'd be landing in Asunción.

That's where I've been ever since. I've been here about three hours now - I bet I could have driven a car to Montevideo in that time. No word as to when they'll reopen the airport, so a full planeload of people just sits here, all around me, silent, for the most part, waiting for our fate to be determined.

So here's some pics:


I drew my carry-on with my fleece vest draped over it. Case you coudn't tell.

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