Analogy

Imagine this.

You and your sibling want the exact same present for Christmas. You have both been waiting, anticipating, for Christmas morning for weeks. Finally, Christmas morning arrives, you go down stairs, and you find all the presents. After opening each one, there is one more left, but it has your siblings name on it. He/she opens it, and there it is, the present you BOTH wanted, but only your sibling got it. How does that make you feel?

Take that feeling and bestow it upon me, because I guarantee you that I felt that same feeling Friday morning. As I was putting on my shoes I received an email, and in the subject of that email were two awful words, “flight canceled.”

I stared at it in disbelief, and finally gained the courage to open it up. Once I did I learned that London was getting “pounded” by a snowstorm and Gatwick Airport (the airport I was flying into) was closed for the next 24 hours. (I later found out from my friend Lauren that she estimated that there was only about 2 inches of snow on the ground…)

Oh, my goodness was I upset. And now I had to get through my day at school knowing that afterwards I needed to figure out how to reschedule and call all of those places in London (train ticket to and from airport in London (25 Pounds), Stonehenge tour (two tickets, one for Lauren one for me, total 58 Pounds)), and London Pass (70 Pounds)) to see if I could get my money back, if I wasn’t going to make it to London.

I finally got a break at school around 1 o’clock and I went back and read the dreadful email. It said that I could rebook a flight for no extra charge. I quickly went to Aer Lingus’ website where I began to look for flights on Friday afternoon or on Saturday (my bilingual coordinator said I could do that, miss school on Tuesday, since we already don’t have school on Monday or Wednesday, and make up that missed day on Friday). Well, all of the flights were already sold out. No luck.

I began to look into the rules of changing my ticket for no extra charge and I discovered that I could change it to up to 30 days after the day of my original flight. So, I tried rescheduling it for the week after Rachel leaves (January 2-9), but since January 2 was exactly 30 days from the date of my original flight, I was going to have to pay the difference of the tickets (which was around 200 Euros). Not happening.

I finally decided to see if there were flights available for next weekend. Sure enough, I could have the exact same itinerary, Thursday the 9th leave for London, Monday the 13th return to Malaga, and for no extra charge. I talked to my bilingual coordinator and she said do it, and that I could make up that missed Monday (the 13th).

However, before I changed my ticket, I wanted to make sure that I could delay everything else, my train ticket, my Stonehenge tickets, and my London Pass.

When I got home from what seemed like the longest day at school ever, I put 10 Euros of credit on my Skype account and started making calls to London. After about an hour of making calls I had everything squared away. My train ticket was good for up to 30 days from my intended date of use, the Stonehenge tour simply changed the date in their system of when we would be going, and the kind people at London Pass told me that it was no problem, and that they would change the date for me as well. Clutch.

I then went to Aer Lingus’ website to change my ticket, and guess what, they were now sold out…. Nah, just kidding. That would have been the icing on the cake. I was actually able to change my flight with no problems.

Incredible. The only bad thing is that I now have to wait another week for London. But, I am still going and didn’t lose any money with all the changes. Not only that, the weather is supposed to be much better next weekend. So, it is all going to work out.

So, here I am, still in Spain, and I have another week of waiting before I get to see London. At least I am going…