Finally, in sweden after 3 days in French hell… A multi country epic tale

Well now, I am here in Sweden.

I am enjoying myself now, But to get here.. thats a totally different story …

Logan Airport 12:30pm:

Well it starts , in logan airport, Boston, Massachusetts. I had arrived a bit early for flight check-in time, since my flight was due to leave at 3:30 EST i had some time to kill. I went to the currency exchange to get Swedish Currency (swedish kronor), After getting to the little both i asked for money exchange and was told that they didn’t have any and were expecting some after 2:30 or so . having another hour to kill I looked around the airport, just to find something interesting , nothing to do time passed a bit slow , but headed back to the both and asked if they had the money yet for transfer and ended up walking away with no money changed over to SEK, and headed further into the airport to catch my US Air flight, the security check was fairly a painless thing but a bit extreme – they should ask you to get naked .

inter logan airport 2:45:
After a bit I Boarded the plane and was ready to head for sweden, Not so much we taxi out to the run way and just sit awhile, after about 10 or 15 minutes the captian breaks the silence by saying that they cant take off because of problems with philidelpia airport, the problem was described as “the runway was buckled and was causing delays, that it should not be long before take-off” i took out my book and started reading my book that should of taken me the whole trip to read. well, sitting at the runway for over 2 hours told me otherwise . about 2.5hours into waiting we finally took off and the pilot said that everthing was clear to go , so onward to philidelpia airport.

Philidelpia Airport: Landing around 6:00ish

Already late from the delay knowing that I had missed my connecting flight I was getting concerned how i would get to my next location which should of been sweden. just after landing and disembarking from the flight the pilot announced that we had arrived and that the airport has been delayed on the fact that there was derbis on the runways . that got me wondering, anyways i headed into the gate and to the nearest US Airways booth and had hoped that there was a way to get back on track, the person at the desk had said that there was a flight from Philidelphia to Paris, France on Air france airlines. the person helping me asked if it was “the bad wether that had delayed me “. so that being the only flight to continue my way to Sweden , I took that as my next flight in order to get to my next destination. the flight was at 6:45 and due to the original delay i headed to the gate , and being told its only a short distance away , my ass a short distance – it was all the way across the entire airport about half a mile of going through the various buildings to the next gate, thinking i was late i was hurrying across the building finaly ariving at gate 26 for air france , I get there and see a few people boarding the plane thinking i was lucky to get there. i handed my ticket over and boarded the plane, as soon as i entered the plane i had relized that there was something a bit off about the setting . poeple were standing being chatty and just otherwise just doing there own thing , I sat down in my seat and greeted the passenger next to me and she said hi back and that th e flight had already been delayed a better part of the last hour. so i sat down and busted out my book again since the first day had got me through about 60% of the book i figured id finish it before even getting to sweden , about 30 or 40 minutes into the “flight(if you call sitting in the gate that)” the captian announces that there removing fuel from the topmost engine and putting it into the lower fuel tanks , beause the top engine was not working correctly and that the flight woulf take off shortly after that , about an hour after that the captain announces that, they are working on the problem and it would only be a short time before take-off , 1 hour after that the pilot reports that they are still working on the prpblem and it should be resolved shortly and we´d be taking off to which the people on the plane cheered to . Not so much . about 45 minutes after that the pilot announces that the plane cant continue and theres no way that he could fly the plane . so after all that rushing and getting in the plane and 4 to 5hours of waiting i’ve got exactly nowhere. and a finshed book .

Philidelphia Airport 11:00 pm EST Attempt 2:

after about an hour of getting off the plane that was delayed by 5 hours and another 1 to 1.5 hour delay to get on the new plane , i finally thought we´d be on the way to the next destination, I called a few people just to let them know i was delayed by the flights , and itwould be a few extra hours later i would come in , so i board plane #2 bound for paris france , on air france airlines. everyones mood is a bit better since we were on a new plane and seemed like we were to leave , the pilot announced we were ready to go and were taxiíng out to the runway , just before the take-off run way the captian cuts in again with “we are sorry but we cant take off at this time due to the flight crew being illegal , and that the plane cannot continue . so back to the gate.

Philidelphia airport 11:45pm Attempt #3:

back in the gate , everyone waiting for the next disaster to happen and seemingly going to be stuck here all night , the desk clerk for US air\air france trying to find a flight crew, at this point this was the 3rd time my flight had been rerouted . in my bordom at that hour i was walking aimlessly just trying to stay awake, the announcement in the airport came up with that they found a flight crew and that they would be there at 2:30 to 4:00 AM EST , this was around 12:30-12:45 , but the part of the building i was in was a slight distance from the gate and the woman that had made the same announcement for my flight walked by and said “I HATE these fucking people ! and said something more and trailed off” after more wandering around , about 5:00am finally had boarded this plane and got sat down , then and finally the plane to Paris France took off .

to be continued….