STILL in NYC

NOTE: I copied this from my other blog. Now I'm in Berlin, but I thought everyone would like to hear the horror story.

Delta Blues

I missed my flight. I should be writing from Berlin right now, but I’m still at Miles’ apartment enjoying dismal NYC weather. I will never be late to the airport ever again. From now on I’m planning for three hours of traffic everywhere I go.

I was supposed to be on Delta #78 with professor Freeman and a few others on my trip that left JFK at 7 p.m. I’ll admit that I definitely should’ve left earlier, but two hours in traffic?! I arrived at JFK and had to get through a long line of other travelers before I was told that I had missed my flight.

I have never been so frustrated or felt more stupid in my entire life. I’ve been looking forward to Berlin for the entire school year, and now I am missing some of the most exciting parts of the trip.

I definitely learned a lesson- sitting in the airport for an extra hour is way better than getting stuck in traffic and missing a flight, especially an international departure.

After I was told I missed it, the guy at the counter (who had a terrible attitude to begin with) tried to reschedule my flight for the following day. By this time all economy class seats had been booked, so the charge for changing my reservation + the difference in fare came to $1,936.61.

Needless to say, I made a scene. A huge scene. And all the guy at the counter had to say was “step away from the counter, and don’t forget your bags.”

From then I went to ticketing to see if someone could help me, and, of course, they couldn’t. I called Cheaptickets.com and they couldn’t help me. It really seemed like there was no way I was going to get to Berlin. I didn’t have the extra 1,900 dollars , I didn’t want to call my family and ask for the money, so I did what any 19-year-old girl would do and continued to make a scene.

After a few minutes of hysterically crying and cursing myself and everyone at the airport, I did begin to pull myself together. I called my family and Miles back. My grandparents transferred me $1,000 out of my only-for-emergencies account (in which there was only 900$, so now if anything happens I really am in trouble). And just as I was about to blow 1900$ dollars on another plane ticket, Miles called me and said he and his mom were searching the internet and had found a flight that would leave Saturday and would only cost $1,232.

Delta did sort of refund my flight, by giving me a $900 credit, which I will use because I’m always flying to NYC. I guess I’ll just have to spend the rest of my summer trying to put back some money in my emergency account.

What a day. Lesson learned, but man, this sucks.

Either way, my flight tomorrow leaves at 6 p.m. (I’m leaving at 1:30… taking no chances), so see you in BERLIN!