We got up at 5 in the
morning to catch our flight from San Francisco to Dallas, leaving at 8,
connecting to a flight to Zurich. The flight actually originated at SFO, but
somehow it took American two hours longer than anticipated to get the plane from
the hangar to the gate. Yup, the sea lion which got from the sea to the American
gate just days earlier took less long, and it didn't even have any help. Having
missed the connection without even boarding the first plane (which still wasn't
in sight), we got a $20 breakfast coupon and a set of boarding passes for a
flight to LA and from there to Zurich on Swissair, er, excuse me,
Swiss.
Four
hours later than planned we departed to the new destination, in first class
courtesy of AA, only to find out that the Bradley terminal has been closed due
to some shooting. You guessed right, that's where Swiss park their planes.
Nobody at the airport had any clue when our flight would leave, much less what
had actually happened or whether the plane from Zurich actually landed at LAX or was
diverted somewhere else.
Once
the terminal reopened, the lines could not be called lines but rather solid
masses of humanity, and the whole place looked like under rule of anarchy. The
security "line" was about 30 people wide and about as long as half the
terminal width, since one half of the terminal remained closed. During the long
wait one didn't have to worry about falling from exhaustion because of the
pressure on one's body from all sides, which was less optimal for people with
weak bladder control. Too bad I didn't snap a picture of this madness, but
unpacking my photo bag somehow seemed like a bad idea in this context.
Once
through security, we found ourselves in a terminal where screens were still
showing flights as departing in the past, at unknown gates. It took a mere 30
minutes and a call to Australia to find out which was the Swiss gate. Tired,
hungry and admittedly grumpy the rest of the trip was a blur - with 9 hours
delay we finally arrived in Zurich, and somehow like a miracle so did our bags.
Here
comes the section where the story is boring for the common reader: Mom got her
iMac upgraded with Mac OS X and sufficient memory, I showed Essan that there indeed
is porn on free German
and French TV, and how big Lingwurm City really was. After a few
days of mom's home cooking we packed up and headed to Prague, my mom's native
town.