Outa Here!

We leave the sunny, warm, (?) environs of northern New Jersey for the still (more) chilly regions of the Baltic tomorrow at 5:20 PM. It was supposed to be at 7:05 PM but when Paula opened an email request from United asking her to pre-choose her meal (which had already been accomplished) curiosities took control and as it turns out, we are now NOT on United, but on Austrian Airlines, NOT into Frankfurt, but into Vienna, NOT arriving at 10:15 Am, but at 7:50 AM, NOT flying to Krakow via Lufthansa, but continuing on with Austrian Airlines and NOT arriving in Krakow at 11:15 Am, but now 2:05 PM.

In the Grand Scheme of Things, this is really a non-issue. But the way that we found out was just a tad disconcerting…… choosing a meal for a flight that had been already changed. One hour and twenty-two minutes of On Hold with United gave us the probable reason why we were jostled around the tarmac and ushered on to a totally new airline. Apparently, the pilots of Lufthansa are having employment issues with their parent company, and it is disrupting flights emanating from Munich, Berlin, and Frankfurt! So, the mavens at Overseas Adventure Travel jumped to the rescue (or so it seems as we’ve not as yet had any meaningful communications with OAT) and re-booked us on flights that could actually get us to our destination in a timely manner. This will be ascertained at exactly at 9:00:000001 AM today as I plan on being the first caller when they open their lines.

Luckily Austrian Airlines had two seats still available in their First Class/Business Cabin because that’s where we were on United. We’ve learned that if we start looking at changing seats just a few days before departure and snag that Mysterious Algorithm that the airlines use to determine seat availability/pricing, and catch it just right, we can score an upgrade for a fraction of its original cost. Remember we accomplished this on the past Houston to Tokyo leg of the Vietnam trip. Austrian Airlines still has the lay-flat seats, but they are not in those cool pod-like enclosures like United has. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers and we’re still on schedule, so kudos to OAT for monitoring this still-evolving situation and getting us to our destination on time!

My next Post will probably emanate from Krakow, Poland as that’s where we’ll be for a few days. We are scheduled to visit some cool-looking Salt Mines that have been around for (yup, here it comes!) about a thousand years or so and way far underground these constructors’ extraordinaire have built at least one Cathedral-like room down there. It looks like our Tour will hold true to the moniker attached to most of these outings, that of the ABC Tour or translated, a Another Beautiful (or Boring!) Cathedral and it starts underground!

Film at 11.