Recap: Travelling out of Country

As I said in the previous post, we hit a small snag at the ticket counter. Imagine 11 relatively young international travelers, each with 2 50lb bags and 2 30lb carry on bags, weighing each bag and adjusting weight as necessary. Then imagine them all getting in line to check in for a 25+ hour journey to Ethiopia. And as they all proceed to the self check-in terminals, they each individually find out that their records cannot be found, and they are directed to wait for a live United Airlines employee to assist them. Now imagine you're that employee. If that were me, I'd be getting a little frazzled at the sight of this scatterbrained and loquacious crew.

The night before, I was over at the Pirtle's place, watching them pack (and taking my mind off of the millions of possibilities of things that could go wrong) while rambling off the random thoughts that came to mind. One of those thoughts, spoken out loud, was that our group was missing that cheesy, schmoozer type personality that oozed charm and made friends with everyone he/she ever met. That's when both Steven and Heather stopped and looked at me. Evidently the reason I couldn't see that person was b/c it was me. So fast forward a few hours, and you find me standing at the ticket counter, fully embracing this new revelation and hamming it up with the lady behind the computer, trying to make sure she doesn't mark us all up to be cavity searched at the security line. She was the first of many airline employees that we would have to deal with trying to get to and from Ethiopia. It worked and we made it on board safe and sound.

Once we got to Dulles Airport, we faced a new challenge. Evidently, Ethiopian Airlines has a 15lb limit on carry-ons, unspecified on their website. Not only that, but Aasif was the attendant at the gate that would be checking us in and he was an unfriendly, black and white rule follower with a thick accent. As we waited in line, I prayed that I wouldn't get him, but if I did, that we'd be in his good graces. But as more and more fliers made it in front of him, the less likely it was looking that he would be in a good mood if/when I got there. Sure enough, when I got to the front of the line, Aasif called me past the red line that I was NOT supposed to cross until he was ready for me. I flashed a smile, tried to be as friendly as possible and hoped he would be easy on me. It didn't work. $60, he tells me, is the fee I owe to get my carry on checked in. It would be the fee that every one of the team would need to pay. So I talked to him a little about it all, and we were able to get away with only checking 7 of the 20ish bags. He and the other 'gate keeper' also let us slide with the weight limit a little bit. By the end of it, Aasif actually upgraded me to 1st Class!!! Not really, but I admit that I tried. He did however give me an exit seat. But I turned it down...I'm not sure why.

So after all that, we finally made it on board Ethiopian Airlines, ready for a 15 hour plane ride to Addis Ababa. I'll have to give you a review of Ethiopian Air later b/c there are stories to be told there. But this post has gotten long enough.

Paul G