A Crazy Few Days...but in Germany

It is a fairly lengthy story, so I will give you some bullet points as to what has happened since Thursday evening.

* Packing for my trip to Germany Thursday eve (speaking at Black Forest Academy for Spiritual Emphasis Week) I suddenly see that my Passport is a few months expired!!!

* I get one hour of sleep and Jeanne-Ann and I run up to Seattle at 3AM. (one of about 5 places in the country you can get a passport the same day). Usually they get it out by th end of the day.

* They expedite it, but not quick enough to make it back to my 11:35AM departure from PDX.

* Delta tells me I can reissue the ticket for another flight minus $230 fee, plus difference in another ticket. Cost would be about $2,300 to go. :(

* I realize that I have mileage and I get Continental to set it all up.

* I spend 2 hours Friday evening trying to get my ticket replaced (we were going to use them for a later flight). Everything went great till the last 30 minutes of my call and the last 2 people I got sent to. They told me the ticket was a dead ticket and worthless and there was nothing they could do!!!

* I yelled a little and said it was unacceptable. Calmed myself and said, "Sorry, I know this isn't your fault." They blamed Travelocity, who would blame Delta, etc., etc.

* Jeanne-Ann calls Delta back and takes care of it and gets some future tickets booked. All is good.

* Jordan makes it out there and Sean's flight gets canceled to Atlanta because of weather and has to go out the next day. Then he sits on a plane in Atlanta the next day and has to get out because of malfunctions and arrives in Basel (Switzerland) at 5:30PM instead of 10:30AM on the same flight that I was on!!!

* My flight from LAX was in an emergency row with no seats in front and one guy in the window seat and me in the aisle. We were excited for the space. Then some crazy, ADD, 65 year old French lady gets all excited and says, "Sorry for you" and sits in the middle seat. She literally gets up and walks around over 50 times on the flight to Paris!! To say the least, it was a test of my patience and grace. I don't think I passed with flying colors.

* We are all here and ready for bed.

A few pics from the plane in LA, Paris and Basel. (thats the Black Forest you see there)