Pages

Friday, February 6, 2009

Stranded in England

This isn't my story but I'm sharing it anyway because it just cracks me up.

AmericninIreland Sam had a business trip. He left Dublin Tuesday night and stayed in a hotel outside of London. Wednesday morning he gave a presentation to a company in London. Then he needed to go to Leeds, England and was going to take a flight from Leeds back to Dublin on Wednesday night.

He has taken just about every form of transportation available- he was on planes, trains, in taxis, a bus, and the Tube.

Wednesday night his flight to Dublin was canceled so he took a cab to Manchester, England and spend the night, figuring he would get a flight the next day. But it snowed in Ireland again, thus shutting down the airport. So come Thursday he was still stranded.

We talked last night and he was kicking himself for not getting on the ferry. But he figured he would just fly out today. We've laughed about the misadventure because 2 days in a row he was off to the airport only to sit for hours and hours and then to be told his flight was canceled.

Well, today was going to be the day! He went to Manchester to catch his flight and... it was canceled. Busy runways, busy air space and more bad weather. Guess who is still stuck somewhere in England? It's a 40 minute flight for him to get home. That's it.

And he can't get the ferry tonight either... So, thankfully some of his friends have a "country place" in northern England and it's Friday, so Sam being Sam, said "fuck it" and hopped on a three hour train ride to see his friends at their country home for the weekend.

He called to tell me his tale of woe today and as he stood there in the Manchester, England airport he started pricing tickets to come to the States to see me- since he can't get out of England and back to Ireland, he thought the odds of getting here were good. Only the ticket into Chicago was just $1723, 20- he would be landing NOW if he bought that on the spur of the moment, but he wanted to know if I would contribute the $23.20. I said sure! The closest he could get at the cheapest price was NYC for about $1100. So... did I mention he was going to stay with friends after a three hour train ride in northern England?

Oh, and Sam only brought the one change of clothes in a carry on bag. His travel clothes he had on Tuesday and his suit for Wednesday- he went shopping as well... poor baby!

Then he goes on to tell me that things like this always happen to him when he travels- maybe it's better than I'm meeting him in Europe somewhere? Though at this rate, I'll arrive in Dublin before he will. I said as much and he told me he would call the landlord to let me in his flat and would I mind so much washing up the dishes and doing a tidy?

I wish I was trapped in England,
Maggie

No comments: