Woke up this morning fairly well-rested but only thanks to the thick blankets on the hotel bed. I mentioned in my last post that I had packed clothes, including my warm pajama bottoms, but later I realized that I had overlooked packing a sleeping shirt, or even another top. I didn't want to wrinkle Mom's nice cardigan, which I would have to wear again the next day, so I ended up just having to wrap the wool shawl I had thankfully put into my bad around my torso. It didn't give me a terrible amout of coverage, but with the blankets, I slept ok.
I got up and tidied up a bit, and made myself a cup of English tea with cream and sugar. But as I was finishing up my cup, I noticed that some of the cream was curdled and sunk to the bottom. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach and a little later, an actual sickly feeling, but it wasn't that much so I was fine a little while later. Shortly after,I noticed a sheet of paper on the floor next to the door. It was a receipt for a telephone charge of $25. I couldn't believe it! Last night, I had made a few short calls, one to Mom and Papa, and then to Jen to get Sky's number, and finally to Sky so that she could message Theo and let him know I wouldn't be arriving as scheduled. The time I spent talking couldn't have been more than 10 minutes, but I had asked the attendant at check-in about calls earlier, and he had told me that calls were free for the first 48 hours. This surpised me a bit, and I even made sure before the left the counter and he confirmed it. I figured that maybe because the United had put me up in the hotel in the first place, I was getting this as a bonus.
I instantly thought about what Papa had said and realized that there really was no way I was going to let them do this to me. Last night, as I had the meal voucher for $15, I treated myself and got a steak dinner and just payed the $7 difference. The lady at the counter this time offered to dismiss $15 off the charge because 'that's what the airline will cover' (well, that's not what they told me!). I told her what the guy from last night had said and she told me that he was new. Of course. She told me she'd let me speak with the manager, but that she was at a meeting and didn't know when she'd be back. I told her that I would wait an hour for the manager and mentioned that I was already going to have to try and get another meal voucher from the airline. I took one of the apples they had there in a bowl on the counter, and maybe she felt bad for me, but she gave me a $20 lunch voucher for the hotel and then told me that she would just clear the entire phone charge. I thanked her and was grateful that I hadn't needed to be rude, just a tiny bit persistent. Or pathetic looking. Who knows.
I ate my apple first, then went into the dining area to get my lunch and was just a tiny bit embarrased that the voucher she had given me said something like 'Distressed Passenger Meal Voucher' but hey, if fed me, even though I only ended up using $11 on a chipotle chicken wrap. It had raw onions in it, but what they say is true: when you're unsure of you're next meal, you'll eat anything. Thankfully, it was a good size, so took the second half to go to save for later. A few minutes later I took the shuttle that brought me back here to the airport.
During the ride there, I got to speaking with a middle-aged lady with a young daughter. She mentioned that she was touring the area to see where she would like to move. I told her a bit about my predicament, and she suggested taking the time between now and my flight to tour the D.C area a bit. (As it turns out, I'm not actually in D.C, but in Virginia, about an hour away.) She said they'd seen the While House the day before and that a bus ride was only $6. I was actually considering it, thinking about how I had quite a bit of time to kill, but as we arrived at the airport, it started to pour. I didn't have my umbrella, was wearing unsuitable flats, and I only had my card on me, not cash. And then I started having horrible visions of me getting lost there and missing my flight again, or getting something stolen (my heavy bad doesn't close at the top) so I decided against it. Because I feel much safer in Paris than here, even by myself. So I went in to ticketing, and I got passed around a few times at the counters, but didn't have to wait long in line before I finally got to someone. Here's the worrisome part: I checked in and got my new boarding pass (to board at 8:55pm) but as they held my luggage last night, they now needed to locate all 3 pieces. The lady asked if the people from last night had asked for a description of the pieces, but they hadn't. So she did that then and told me they'd look for them. Great. She mentioned that luggage isn't allowed to leave the country without it's owner, so that there was an 88% chance that it was still here. That's seriously what she said.
So now I'm sitting here leaning on big glass windows of the main terminal, hoping that the flashes of light I see and rumble of thunder through the glass at my back doesn't make matters worse and delay my flight further tonight. I think I'm going to wait a little while longer so that I can eat the rest of my chicken wrap here instead of risk getting it tossed out at security. Worse case, I could just buy something else, but already I've spent money that I wouldn't have had to had my flight not been delayed.
Anyways, that's all for now. I'll post any updates if they come up later.
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