Aili's Adventures in...: on the road again

Moving on from Melbourne began with a bit of a false start. The airport shuttle was over an hour late for our scheduled pick-up, so I began to wonder if Priscilla and I would make our check-in cutoff time. We had the kind of ticket where you forfeit the fare if you miss your flight, so I was pretty happy and relieved when I inquired about getting a taxi to the airport and managed to find out that our airline's computer system had crashed, resulting in stranded passengers, delayed flights and utter confusion at the airport.

When we finally got to the airport, we got to personally experience the chaos... There were people everywhere - you couldn’t even identify what was a line and what wasn’t! We arrived half an hour before our scheduled departure time - exactly at our check-in cutoff time - and our flight wasn’t on the departures board. I asked an airline staff member what was happening with our flight. He managed to find out that it would be leaving at some point that day, but that was about all the info we could get. Standing in the airport, watching masses of people waiting around with their baggage, listening for flight numbers to be yelled out by airline staff so that would-be passengers could raise their hands to identify themselves, I couldn’t help but find the whole thing pretty entertaining - the airport was humming more than the Melbourne casino had been on a recent Friday night! There was excitement in the crowd when one of the self-check-in kiosks started functioning :) An hour and a half after we were supposed to take off, our flight number was called... It was our turn! We raised our hands... got ushered towards the check-in counters and put into one line... then another line... then yet another... only to find out that there were no seats left on our flight! It had been oversold and filled with passengers stranded from the previous day, so we were re-booked for a flight the following night.

I've been meaning to go to the tulip festival in Ottawa for years. It's funny, but every year I seem to think of it a month or two after it's finished. When Priscilla and I were on the east coast, a retired Dutch couple who'd been living near Melbourne for over 20 years informed us that the city also had a tulip festival, and it was going to coincide with the time we were going to be in town. They even offered to take us there! But the month in Melbourne went by quickly - we ran out of time and didn't manage to take them up on their generous offer. One of my first thoughts when I found out that we were going to be delayed by a day was that we could go to the tulip festival. Dianne - who graciously offered to save us from the travel chaos with food and shelter - had the same idea. The extra day in Melbourne gave us the perfect opportunity to go, so we did! The tulips were lovely although I have to admit, the festival aspect of it was lacking. Even though it was raining off and on, I enjoyed it.

The next day, we managed to confirm our flight out in the evening before going to the airport. When we finally boarded the plane, I had an aisle seat. The guy across the aisle one row up was reading a newspaper that had a big article about the airline fiasco I'd just experienced. I skimmed the first paragraph over his shoulder. My eyes grew wide and I almost started laughing. I leaned forward in disbelief, trying to get a better look and had to ask the guy if I could borrow his paper when he was done with it. He was kind enough to oblige and when he did, closer inspection confirmed what I thought I'd read: The airline's statement claimed that a technology giant was responsible for what had happened, because its contracts should have guaranteed back-up systems kicked in when the airline's boarding systems crashed - and that technology giant just happened to be the same company I'm on a leave of absence from! This might just be the first time ever that a work-related glitch has provided me with the opportunity to stop and smell the roses see the tulips :)