Flight Canceled! Dubai, UAE

My original flight had me flying out of JFK to Dubai, 90 minute layover, and a direct flight to Hyderabad, India (the home of Sweet Pea Gullapallit.) Not exactly easy-peasy, but pretty great as far as these things go.

Like a well behaved international traveler I arrived at JFK 3 hours before my flight that was 11:30pm.

In orderly fashion we all boarded the flight and I was starting my plane sleep - a sort of very uncomfortable very very tired and can't read but can't REALLY sleep - as we pulled out of the gate. In my daze I didn't really notice it but we stayed just out of the gate for quite a while. A long hour while in fact. Then the captain said they were checking some mechanical stuff and it would be just a few minutes. Well, long story short around 2:30am we all got off the plane and the flight was cancelled.

Did I say long story short? I should have said long mini-chapter short. That was just the beginning!

So I was at the very back of the plane and was therefore at the very end of the line to tell them my name, final destination, a phone number and if I needed a hotel. For some reason these little facts were needed by the airline (though they should have had everything except if I needed a hotel) and for even more mystical reasons it took an hour and a half to get this information from everyone.

Being last in that line also meant I was last in line to get on a bus to go to a hotel. So there we are, I'm all dressed for Hot Town Hyderabad and its 4am and freezing and I'm waiting outside with a crush of grumpy people for some mysterious bus that does not seem to be coming. EVER! Like it is a surpise at 4 am that there are buses needed? Didn't they know this around 2:00 when the decision to cancel the flight was made??

So anyway, around 4:30am I finally give my luggage to a bus driver and board my bus thinking, "Finally I can relax a little." Despite the club-like atmosphere created by the techno music bumping through the bus (just about the LAST sort of music we needed) I was feeling a little more rested and a little more warmth.

Then I just happen to look out the window and see one of my bags looking a bit wayward on the curb with the bus driver getting into the bus about to drive off. I leapt up and rescued my bag from an African man who was carrying it off away from the bus and think "wow, that was close." I didn't see my other bag anywhere so assumed it was on the bus. Silly princess, why ever would I make such a logical conclusion? About 5 or 10 minutes later a woman who was poking around a pile of wayward luggage that didn't look to be going ANYwhere came walking down the aisle with a bag that sorta looked like mine. She stopped right next to me in the aisle and looking down I realized, "hey, that's my bag." "Umm... that's my bag," I said. "What?" she said. "That's my bag," I said. And upon examination, she realized that yes, it was my bag.

So.... somehow I managed to get to the hotel, with all my baggage, and get a room and get into said room by about 5:15am. I slept a nice little 5 hours, got back on a bus and back to the airport.

I wish the saga ended here...

But no. There I waited in line for several hours (they didn't have anyone at the counter and then had only one or two people doing all the reticketing) before being told that I no longer had a nice little connection in Dubai to Hyderabad. Now I have a 14 hour lay-over in Dubai, fly to Chennai (aka Madras), where I have to collect my bags, navigate through customs, get to the domestic terminal and check into a different airline to then fly to Hyderabad - all of it after this loooong journey and by myself, a little gringa whose never been anywhere more exotic than Italy. Oh, and with a 6 hour layover.

So there it is, I had spent MUCH more time in line than sleeping, hadn't eaten in 20 hours and was now needing to deal with a much more daunting journey. And I hadn't even left yet!

And here I am, Dubai, United Arab Emerites, playing at an internet cafe. Funny, just before leaving I was talking about hoping I wouldn't have a very eventful journey and things are getting off to a less than smoooooth start!

But anyway, since then things have been pretty smooth (knock on wood) and my fellow passengers have been quite friendly. I've made several friends, been offered the use of an apartment in Dubai and invited to a wedding in Hyderabad. Not so bad.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of the adventures of the wayward princess's journey to Hyderabad!