8/7 We didn't sleep long - up at 3:15AM to pack and head to the airport. The night attendant called a cab - several times - which finally arrived after not being able to find the hotel - "What about the airport?" Joe asked half-jokingly. The cabbie was friendly but didn't speak much English - just enough to inform us that he was n't a 'regular' taxi -whatever that meant! Nonetheless after a FAST drive that would be the envy of any Manilla cab driver, we arrived in one piece at the airport and got checked in. Unfortunately the 7:25AM flight to Amsterdam - where we were supposed to transfer to a nonstop flight to Portland, was delayed. So we were rebooked on a 1:25PM to Boston to catch a connection to Portland. This flight, however, was also delayed leaving little hope that we would make the Portland connection. We slept in the airport, had lunch and finally left at 3PM seated in the last row. We did enjoy watching a couple good movies on the flight.
About 20min out of Boston, the flight attendants moved us to the business class at the front of the plane in a futile gesture to help us make our connecting flight which was scheduled to leave 15min after our arrival. Keep in mind we would still have to retrieve our luggage and go through customs - and so of course we did not make the connection. And then the nightmare began. The problem stemmed from having been booked on another carrier. While our reservations had been through Delta/Air France, our missed connection was on Alaska. They didn't want to assume responsibility for us and sent us back to Delta, who also didn't want to assume responsibility for us and so began a long three hour trek between terminals A, B and E, hauling all our luggage as we went from carrier to carrier trying to get a flight home. At once point - only AFTER a phone call - did we find out that Air France had actually booked us on another flight, but after waiting in line for an hour their, we discovered that the reservation was no good as they had neglected to issue tickets (besides which they forgot to tell us when we left the plane1).
FINALLY, Air France re-booked us on a flight to PDX for the following day and, after another long hike between terminals, provided us with vouchers for a hotel and meals. We ended up with one more night in luxury accommodations at the Hilton attached to the airport (only another long walk - but hey, we'd been taking long walks for WEEKS!). We had a nice dinner, a refreshingly long sleep, and relaxing breakfast before boarding our flight without incident the following day.
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