oops, wrong season turn

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oh crap,

i left southern africa for the netherlands on the 14th of december. it was cold, dark and dreary. oh man i am not ready for winter yet. i had a difficult time motivating myself to leave the comforts of the home of my new friends, roel and monique(we met in mozambique), that kindly welcomed me into there abode. however, i did manage it a couple of days as i took the ubiquitous bicycle out for country/city tours(yes it is plural). not to worry, i didn't smoke-drink (kinda like drink-drive). despite the dreariness of the weather the netherlands is a lovely country.

on the 18th, i happened to be channel surfing and saw that a snow storm was forecast for the detroit airport on the 19th. double oh crap, as my flight to detroit was scheduled for the same time frame. oh well, what is one to do. i boarded the plane for home. i made it to detroit with a small delay due to "severe weather". 10 minutes late was fine with me. it was the 2 hours it took them to unload our baggage, while we waited in the barren wasteland known as U.S. customs of course, that was the bitch of it. i tried not to worry much about my connection but was partially unsuccessful. information is very limited in this twilight zone but i managed to find two northwest representatives to ask about my flight and got two very different answers. one said i would miss my on-time flight, while the other said that it was delayed and i'd be fine. provided that they could finally figure out how to take our bags off of the plane.

finally, my bag arrived and i was able to head to customs with 10 minutes till my originally scheduled departure time. CUSTOMS! aaaarrrrgggghhhhh. once again i am thwarted by that BEAST. apparently, people that layover in the Netherlands are apt to bring drugs back to the usa, so i was thoroughly searched, though not stripped. after my inspection and the mandatory repacking of my bag, i head out of the customs abyss only to be told by the helpful greeting agent that I missed my connection. ah but i say my flight is delayed because a nice fellow used his cell phone, illegally, in the customs holding area and his secretary told him that my flight was delayed 2.5 hours. do any of you nice, smiling northwest airlines employees know what the hell is going on? (they still can't say why it took 2 hours to unload our baggage)? that is a rhetorical question!!!

no, they don't know squat cause i went to a gate agent to check on my flight. this guy told me that the flight was cancelled. let's see: on-time and missed, 1 hour late, cancelled, 2.5 hours late/internet? did i make a wrong turn and end up back in AFRICA???? no no this is the "sofisticated firstworld" society. ok so maybe the west doesn't get everything right all the time. LOL LOL LOL. oh but i digress.

after this agent booked me into two flights to attempt to get me out of detroit, the first of those being delayed, i decided to head to the gate of my original flight. there i was told that my flight, in fact, wasn't cancelled and it might be leaving at 1530 hours. well, we boarded about 1645 and sat there for 40 minutes before moving on. the point was/is i was on my way home with only a 3 hour delay (not bad as chicago and new york airports were shut down). that is, home to my airstream parked at my brothers'.

i wasn't yet thinking of the subfreezing temperatures that i would endure in my new untested home. more on that later.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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