The Airport Blues

Today has been a very memorable airport day. I was suppose to get up at 4:00 AM to catch a ride at 5:00 to be at the airport by 6:00 for a 7:00 flight on Air India. At 3:50 AM I received a call from Air India informing me that the flight would be delayed for 1 hour. OK, I sleep more. Got to the airport to find that the flight has been canceled. Nobody seems to know what to do. I finally get told that they will re-book me on an 8:30 flight, but the computers are down, and 20 airline employees can't figure out for an hour how to actually write a boarding pass. I eventually fly from Bangalore to Mumbai and miss my connecting flight to Lucknow by about 40 minutes. No problem, Air India has a flight going to New Delhi, and from there to Lucknow, and instead of being in Lucknow for lunch, I'll be there by dinner. Once we board the flight for New Delhi, I watch a complete movie on the tarmac, the plane doesn't move for 1.5 hrs. I missed the Air India connection to Lucknow. Once in New Delhi, I report to the "customer service counter", and they offer me a complete refund. I take it, go to another terminal, and book a new flight from New Delhi to Lucknow on Kingfisher Airlines. From the call at 3:50 AM I finally got to Lucknow at about 8:15 PM. Didn't get much business done today, but had the cultural experience of crowds, pushing, and working my way around unfamiliar places. I'm grateful that it's over for a while.