Stop and Go

I am in South Africa! Many of you have probably heard this already but getting here did not go quite as smoothly as I had hoped. I was scheduled to fly out Sunday afternoon. Chels dropped me off at the Gainesville airport about 45 minutes early. Gainesville is a really small airport so we figured that would be plenty of time. It turns out it wasn’t. It took them a while to check me in because the computer said there was an issue with my ticket, but when the agent checked he couldn’t find anything. That got done and I got into the security line. There were two flights leaving about the same time (which is about all the capacity the airport can sustain) and only one scanner so the line took a while. Unfortunately when I got to the front of the line I realized I had forgotten to empty my Nalgene. I asked if there was somewhere I could dump the water out but the lady said no so I had to leave the line and go dump it in a trash can.

I got in line again and thankfully it went faster. I had just walked through the scanner when I heard them calling my name. I could see the lady at the Delta counter so I waved my hand and said, “That’s me!” She said I had one minute, which I figured was fine, I was done with security…then I heard the TSA agent proclaim “we need a bag check.” With a feeling of doom I realized it was my bag. I had left my netbook in my backpack because a sign in the line clearly stated that computers smaller than 12x14 didn’t need to be taken out. Apparently that is only partially true. They said I had too many electronics in my bag and proceeded to basically empty my backpack, searching every compartment and individually wiping down and scanning all my electronics. This took about 10 minutes, add to that the 2 minutes it took for the person to walk over to do the bag check and to joke around with the other TSA folk before opening my bag and I was about 11 minutes past my one minute limit. I kept looking over at the Delta lady and trying to be patient with the TSA people, but it was too late. By the time they gave me back my stuff my flight had left.

I went and talked to the Delta lady and she was very nice. She said the next flight was completely full but that she’d put me on standby and if anyone was even a little bit late she’d give me their seat. If I missed that one, though, it would be too late; I wouldn’t reach Atlanta until after my flight to Africa left. There wasn’t much else I could do so I thanked her and sat down. I waited there for about an hour and a half when an announcement was made that the incoming Delta flight was delayed due to mechanical difficulties. The new arrival time would probably still give me enough time to run and make my connection, so I prayed and waited. I tried to trust that God had some kind of plan and was going to work things out; I was too close and delayed too much outside of “normal” for it just to be coincidence. Nonetheless I’ll admit it was stressful.

About twenty minutes later they came on again and said there were still maintenance issues and that the flight was further delayed. Now my overlap would only be about 20 minutes. Atlanta is a big airport and I wasn’t sure I could make it. I left the waiting area and went to talk to a Delta representative (this was itself an ordeal, the exits were locked and I had to call for someone to come let me out). It turns out a number of people were inconvenienced by the delayed flight so there were big lines at the Delta counter. I stood in line about 25 minutes then finally got to talk to someone. She said that there was a very slight chance that I would make my connection but that I could try if I wanted. I decided I really didn’t want to risk spending a night in Atlanta when I could be spending it with Chels in Gainesville so I agreed to take the next day’s flight (There’s only one flight a day from Atlanta to Johannesburg).

I waited in line some more to talk to another agent who rebooked me for the next day and then called Chels to come pick me up. It was definitely nice to get to spend more time with my wife, but part of me still wished I had made my plane. I also had to rebook the South African Airways portion of my flight, which cost a changing fee, but wasn’t too bad.

The next day Chelsea dropped me off to try again. This time I was an hour and 15 minutes early and of course it was a typical Gainesville airport day and I had to wait until 30 minutes before my flight before they even opened the security checkpoint. This time I made it on without incident and the flight to Atlanta went fine. My time in Atlanta went well also. I was apprehensive about my seating assignment on the Joberg (Johannesburg) flight because I had originally booked a window but when I got bumped I was moved to an inside aisle. The Lord totally worked that out, however, because the girl who was supposed to be sitting next to me requested at the airport to move over one to the other aisle so we ended up having an open seat in between us, which made sleeping and stretching out much easier on a 14 hour flight! The girl was nice (I call her a girl but she was probably older than I am). She was headed to Joberg for three months to do research for a pro bono law company she works for. It was a fairly pleasant flight; the food wasn’t bad and the movie selection was good. Eventually we landed in Joberg, where the next challenge awaited.

Even though I had missed my flight the day before, my bag hadn't. I'd already checked it in and it was loaded long before they found out I wasn't on the plane. My teammate Jessica said she would try to grab it once she got to Port Elizabeth (we were supposed to be travelling together) but I didn't know if she had been able to or not. When I got to Joberg I got worried because they said our bags had to come out and go through customs, even if they were supposed to be checked through to our final destination. That made me nervous because I hadn't been there to do it the day before and because it meant Jessica probably couldn't have gotten my bag in Port Elizabeth (PE). I went and talked to a man at the Delta counter and he looked at my bag ticket and said my bag should arrive the next day. I was very confused about why it would leave one day before me and arrive one day after. I'm still not totally sure of the reasoning. He said they could set it up to ship it to me in PE but that first I should check the conveyer belt just in case it showed up. I walked over, not expecting to see it, but praise the Lord, there it was! I have no idea how it got out there on the same flight I did or at the same time, but it was there so I grabbed my bag.

 

I went to check in for my South African Airways flight from Joberg to PE and hit my next problem. They couldn’t find my name on the flight list. The travel agent said he had rebooked the flight, but for some reason it wasn’t showing up. They sent me to the main ticket counter but they couldn’t find it either and sent me to the ticket booking counter. I really didn’t want to have to pay for a new ticket, especially since I’d already paid a fee to change the original ticket. I also really didn’t want to get stuck in Joberg for the night as I didn’t have a way to get in touch with my ride in PE. I started praying that somehow it would work out. I got to the counter and the lady there couldn’t find my ticket either. I asked her to call the travel agent in Florida but she said she couldn’t. I told her I knew I had booked the new flight, I knew what flight and day and time it was and that it had been taken care of. She said she couldn’t see it then paused for a few minutes, hit some keys on her keyboard, and wrote down a new e-ticket number and told me I was fine to go. Again, I’m not really sure how it worked out all of the sudden, but I am very grateful that it did.

After that the rest was straightforward. I rechecked my bag, went through security, waited around for an hour, and then got on my flight. Two hours later I was in Port Elizabeth. I was very tired, but I had made it and I had all my gear. Praise the Lord!