Disclaimer: This is Ted, Ann’s husband, posting under her account, so it should be noted from the start that anything said is my own personal opinion and not representative of the network and its sponsors. Nor, since I have only just arrived in China, should the trials and tribulations that I describe be seen as anyway indicative of the management of the trip or any one else’s. It is suggestive only of my own general lack of common sense while traveling, and perhaps, something of the ailing state of our nations airlines. Of course, the airline industry has suffered greatly for the last decade, but I can’t help but feel at some level, that this suffering is greatly deserved.

Murphy’s law:  If something can go wrong it will.  O’toole:  Murphy was an optimist.

First off, I knew it was a bad idea to try and travel to China only a day after I finished administering finals to my English classes at Drexel. Already fatigued from three days of conferencing with students and a last ditch effort to clean up the house, I made an early morning trip to the airport with little in my carry on bag than 88 final exams and airline necessities. After long-time friend and limo driver Jason Mezey dropped me at the airport, I soon discovered that the flight for the first leg of the journey to Chicago had been cancelled because there was no crew. After playing ticket pachinko with the electronic kiosk, I was able to reschedule for a flight two hours later—but the printer jammed and sent me to another machine. After I logged in to that machine, however, it said I wouldn’t have a flight until the following day. Fortunately I checked with a real person behind the counter and discovered that I did indeed have a ticket for a delayed flight that would be leaving the airport, but had a good chance of missing my connecting flight to Beijing.

I didn’t think this would be a bad idea. I’ve been put up in hotels before, and usually the airline accommodations are good, sometimes I can even talk my way into getting a better ticket the following day. At the very least, I would have completed one leg of the journey and wouldn’t have to start over again from scratch. (I was pretty certain, too that long-time friend and limo driver would be neither if I asked him to pick me up again at six o’clock the following day). But apparently my past experiences with overnight lay-overs were not fully representative of all the evils that can plague one at the cheaper, seedier, less reputable hotels in the Chicago areas. After a three hour wait in line, I was directed to the “Days Inn Addison” roughly twenty minutes from the airport, and this is where my troubles began. 1) The hotel I was given a voucher too didn’t really have an official van, so it took more than two hours in the rain before I and my fellow voucher-holders were picked up in an unmarked van at the airport. 2) Upon arriving, the hotel accepted all our vouchers but pointed out that it had no restaurant so the meal vouchers were pretty much a lost cause. 3) Four hours after check in, we were called along with all other United customers back to the front desk, 18 of us in all; they had declined our vouchers because United claimed to have never given them out in the first place, suggesting that they were probably forgeries. 3) In spite of the fact that we seemed to be a rather large and sundry mix of con-artists, the hotel clerk seemed surprisingly kind to us so long as we were willing to fork over cash or credit card numbers, but if we wanted to return to the airport, they were sure to tell us that since our vouchers were rejected we would have to pay non-customer rates for the trip. 3) Since it was already the cheapest, seediest hotel I had stayed in, and since a tornado had just hit southern Chicago and was working in our direction, I figured I might as well just pay for the night and figure out the bill issues later. After finally giving up and going to bed, I was woken up at 11:30 by a Korean man who tried to deliver me a pizza. I finally convinced him that I had ordered no pizza, but by the time he left I thought back with regret—perhaps he would have accepted food vouchers? 4) Early in the morning the fire alarm started blaring; we were all evacuated from the hotel and watched in dismay from the street as smoke poured out of the breakfast area in what shall henceforth always be referred to as “toaster-gate”. Turned out that one of the customers tried to make toast in the microwave, and accidentally sent the timer for 30 minutes rather than 30 seconds. Fortunately, this problem was small enough that it could be handled by the two fire trucks and ambulance that arrived shortly thereafter. While written off as an accident, I secretly suspect that it was one of the customers subtle commentary on quality of service and accommodations. Better to burn the hotel to the ground and start over than try and refurbish or repair the dwindling status of the Days Inn hotel.

The one perk I had from United in having to wait twenty-four hours for the next flight was that they reassigned my seat to an economy plus seat in the emergency exit aisle. Unfortunately, when I checked back in to the airport the following day they reassigned my seating to a new one, shoe-horned into an aisle with a family of children that had also been grounded for the night. They were well mannered enough, though everyone of them also came down with air sickness over the course of the flight. The flight was otherwise uneventful, though of course every movie seemed to star queen latifah or matthew McConaughey. The flight arrived in Beijing two hours late, though. This meant that I missed the connected flight to Xi’an and ended up having to pay cash for the last flight of the evening. After the mystery hotel and toaster-gate experience, however, this seemed like only a small hiccup in the final journey. I was happy to turn over my paper Maos if it meant not having to spend another night in a strange city, wondering if Ann and the class were still going to be in Xi’an by the time I arrived. Sure enough, I made it just under the wire and Ann was able to pick me up at the airport with a kindly driver. I had never been more relieved. Now, here I am at last, at the palatial Garden hotel with its fountains and peacocks, and hall these nasty memories are already starting to disappear like mist. Perhaps this is just the Ambien kicking in, but whatever the reason for the memory loss, I say good bye, and good riddance.

It’s time to get this adventure off on the right foot. I look forward to meeting the rest of the group tomorrow.

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