An Anti-climatic Beginning

Well, I'm not exactly paroozing Amsterdam right now, as previously planned :( My flight coming out of Pittsburgh - yes, the very first plane of the entire trip - was stopped due to air traffic. We had to sit in the plane for an hour after it was delayed from the terminal for half an hour. Leaving at 7:56 for an hour plane ride to JFK to catch a connecting at 9 became a bit stressful but we (two 25ish business-type guys sitting in front of me were from Amsterdam) thought that flight would be delayed as well. It wasn't. We missed it. By 5 minutes.


I waited for Delta to rebook my flight for 2 hours and then another hour while it was actually being rebooked. The guy that helped me was extremely nice - we both had the disease of 'sarcastic tounge' and since I was the only passenger waiting, we had a great time teasing one another. He's from Italy and is planning a month long trip through Europe in a few weeks with his girlfriend who is a flight attendant (how cute, yeah?) and was very excited for my summer in Kenya. It's amazing how much you get to know people while you're waiting on the higher-ups to do their job. He checked me into my flight early, helped me navigate the insanity of JFK, and took care of all my luggage - something that would have required me to go all the way to customer service in another terminal.


I checked into a hotel last night and had a really great time resting. Although this is extremely disappointing and a bit difficult because I can't get ahold of the airline who is taking me from Nairobi to Mombasa, I met some really interesting folks last night in the nearly-vacant terminal and on the shuttle to the airport. *Travel tip #1: kindness will get you a lot further in your travels than blunt annoyance - fake AAA membership to save you money at a hotel or priority seating on a rebooked flight, for instance :)


This is a very factual and bland post, I appologize, but I'm paying for the internet right now from my hotel's business center. They will get a lot more entertaining and full of pictures, I promise. I fly to London tonight at 8:30 PM so have a lot of time to kill but am unsure how to spend it. I then rush to Nairobi and hopefully catch a connecting that will put my into Mombasa at 11:30 tomorrow night. Kind of a 'blah' start to a great trip. I hope you all are doing well and keep me up-to-date on your lives. I will rarely check Facebook but will check my Gmail account if you can't respond to this blog: jhollern@gmail.com.


Peace and Love.