SA

Day 1: A False Start + Failed Attempt = An Adventure

July 26, 2014

We set out to have an adventure and that is just what we are doing. We knew going into this trip that flexibility was key so here we sit at a bar at JFK Airport in New York City waiting for our new flight. Yesterday, a false start and then a failed attempt to get on a flight to Venice, Italy caused us to spend the night in Queens and reroute our trip to see the Queen herself.

To clarify why we are being so flexible… we are flying standby. Thus, we have been researching our flights and trying to pick those that are notoriously under-booked… that way we can hopefully catch the flight and fly for cheap. So our original trip went from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Detroit, Michigan to New York City, New York to Venice, Italy.

Cedar Rapids was our false start. As we waited by the ticket counter and each of the other passengers got on… we heard that multiple other flights had been canceled that day… which meant they were taking the seats that we had originally thought were ours. But that did not deter us.

We then found a flight from Madison to Detroit later that day… we raced to the car and started driving. Our speed was dictated by the equilibrium of not getting pulled over and driving fast enough to make the flight. We cruised on into Mad-town with time to spare.

Detroit was easy… we flew in, found our next gate, got our seats and were off. Smooth.

New York was our final battle. We knew this would be the trickiest… a trans-atlantic flight in the peak of summer travel season. Just as we thought we were golden we learned they had vastly overbooked the flight and we weren’t going to make it. Us and about 20 others walked away disappointed.

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We had to rethink our strategy and decided to have a stay over at a shady Howard Johnson in Queens and look at into other possibilities. Around midnight we saw our opportunity to go from Queens to see the Queen was very possible the next day. London was booked and we slept the night away.

Tomorrow comes another day of flights and fun. The adventure continues…