Ed's salvage job of a bitching lil 12in G4 worked great! I made it to Portland in the early evening and had a GREAT time at R's Palette with the GD crew as we took over the entire 1st floor! Nice work GD Crew!
I said my good byes at R's and headed out to meet up with Brown. The goal was to be home by 10... but 12:30 was the magical number. I frantically finished transferring files from laptop to laptop and managed a massively useless 2 hours of sleep. Got up at 3AM and rallied the parents. We got to PDX at 4:05AM for a 6:04AM flight, plenty of time to check-in and get through security...
That was the plan anyway...
But, I got totally fucked by passport control, and thus began the shittiest day of travel I've yet encountered.
I was denied my boarding pass at 4:10AM because of Visa complications. My 90 day work Visa DID NOT extend my 90 day Schwengen visa. I was assured that I would have a full 180 days of EU eligibility by my employers... WRONG
As my passport was scanned, computers all over the world went "beep" "beep" "beep" and many red lights flashed... This was all very confusing to me. The United Airlines staff then informed me in the most "NON-sympathetic" (and I stress NON) way as only an airlines can, of how very stupid I was for booking a 6 month ticket with a 3 month visa... Once again I was VERY confused.
They offered similar helpful advice on how to rectify the situation... NONE.
So now very sleepy, confused, slightly hung-over and in awe of my current situation, 5AM rolled around. Logically the only quick fix to get me on a plane was to cancel my return ticket and RE-purchase a new return ticket within 90 days. At a whopping $1,125, lube not included.
This certainly was not an option as I only had available $700.00 until I start earning the much needed Euro's that would be funding my Summer travels!
The next viable solution was to contact my travel agency and change my return ticket. This would be the cheapest way to temporarily fix the problem. I would have to change my return ticket to 90 days from my departure flight to let me get on a plane. You might be thinking, "damn Josh, quit your bitching, change your flight and go!" Oh, I wish.
First problem:
The travel office didn't open till 7AM... ONE whole hour after my flight left, putting me in jeopardy of voiding my entire ticket. My only saving grace was a 6.5 hour layover in Chicago which became the needed trip-saving buffer!
While waiting for the travel office to open, I let my mom deal with staff at the United desk... Go Mama, go! Nothing like a pissed off mom to start off the United workers day. She got my flight moved to the 11:30AM to Chicago, arriving just 30 minutes before my connecting flight was to depart for Charles De Gualle!
After several hours on the phone, a years worth of stress, 2 dropped calls while on hold and $215.00 later... I had changed my return ticket to June 16th; Still 2 weeks before the end of my work contract, but it got me on the plane!
Now that I am here, I can take a breather. I will have to deal with the airlines again to Re-extent my ticket to September... for another non-negotiable fee, but I will save that battle for another day.
But, I made it!
Ah, the joys of travel.
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