A very rough start

After an unexpected round of unforeseen accidents, I missed my initial flight from Yakima to Seattle by just a couple of minutes. What a great way to begin a trip… I quickly decided to take the charter bus to Seattle anyways in hopes of transferring to a different flight schedule. It wasn’t until I was already half way to Seattle that I realized my passport was left back at the Yakima Airport. After many rounds of phone tag, I managed to have my passport forwarded to Sea-Tac airport on Horizon Air’s next flight to Seattle (which eventually got delayed to a later departure).

Once I arrived at Sea-Tac Airport, I stormed through a whirlwind of phone calls. I had to get a hold of my travel agents (Orbitz), my airline representatives (Delta), one of my professors at Rome (Lisa, though the call was unsuccessful), the UW Rome Center (left a voice message), and my peers (via text message) that I was going to be on a postponed flight schedule. I was literally on the phone for at least four hours this afternoon, trying to get a hold of multiple parties at once! Initially, an international flight representative said that I had to pay around $2,000 extra to change my schedule on short notice. My jaw dropped and I was about to lose my sanity… However, I wasn’t willing to accept this option and sought other ways to change my schedule. My persistence finally paid off when I found a more experienced travel agent who changed my schedule WITHOUT having me incur any additional fees. The only consequence would be that I would arrive a day later than expected, at the earliest. I was really depressed to hear this, as I did not want to miss out on anything important that may be covered the first day abroad. However, I knew the situation could have been worse; I’m just glad to have found an alternate route.

I am truly the epitome of Murphy’s Law.