What do you call it when things work out better than you planned? Serendipity? Good Luck?
Well, whatever it is we’re feeling particularly grateful for it because when I first found out our flight was canceled from London to Aberdeen I didn’t think it was good luck.
Of course, at that point I had had a total of 2 hours semi-tortured sleep in the middle seat of our row on the Dreamliner from Calgary, Alberta to London, Gatwick and was in the back of a van trying to avoid motion sickness.
I looked over at D. and he was positively green from the motion of the van in London traffic in the rain. “Our flight is cancelled,” I told him. He looked as if he was being flogged at sea.
This is the irony of travel. You can have these beautiful moments of the new and unexpected but to get there it seems there is no way around sleep deprivation, backaches, smelly clothes, crooked necks, unplanned fasting, and near sickness in the back of a van.
Can’t say it isn’t worth it though.
So I am desperately trying to get my wi-fi to work that I paid extra for in the van that I paid extra for in order to save a flight I paid less for because it was with a different airline at a different airport.
I knew that making this connection might be tough. We had 3 hours to clear customs, get from Gatwick to Heathrow, clear security again and board.
Traffic was terrible and though our driver was doing the best he could it ended up taking twice as long as expected and he told us he was “exhausted” when he finally dropped us off at Heathrow only 30 minutes before our flight to Aberdeen was supposed to take off.
Good thing it was cancelled! Because we probably wouldn’t have made it on time anyway.
So I stood in line to get rebooked to Shetland just mainly hoping I could arrange a hotel quickly. But British Airways was remarkable! They rebooked us for a flight that left in two hours to Inverness and paid for our hotel overnight in Inverness and dinner to compensate for the trouble. Amazing!
We stayed at a lovely hotel in downtown Inverness and took a wee walk down to the river and a local castle after. Grand.
