Liberia: Back in the US: 3.15.07

Thursday 3/15
(10pm)

I thought yesterday, my last day in Liberia, would be the last day of my journaling, but today was far too eventful to leave to my own infamously fallible memory. We flew overnight from Monrovia to Brussels without incident (or sleep, in my case).

Our baggage arrived intact, and we waited about 30 minutes for LouLou Cange to show up with Paulcy’s Green Card (he had it airmailed from the States after he realized our first day that he had forgotten it). We all checked in for our flights home, and with a couple hours until takeoff, LouLou joined us for a delicious breakfast of pastries, coffee and hot chocolate at a café overlooking the main terminal. After eating, we enjoyed some shopping in the duty-free shops. Paulcy advised my purchase of fine Belgian chocolates for Linds, and I made a futile search for any American sports magazine that would have published the NCAA tournament bracket. Dr. Allison and I went through security thinking Paulcy and George were close behind – we were wrong and they were buying more chocolate. When they finally got through security and we started down the interminable corridor to our gate, we had only 10 minutes to takeoff. For the first time in my life, I had the privilege of hearing my name (along with Paulcy’s and Dr. Allison’s) broadcast over the PA system of an international airport, as our flight crew made its final boarding call. We Americans said a hurried “farewell” to George McConnell at his gate, and then sprinted to ours just as they were about to close up – we made it, barely.

Brussells to JFK seemed much longer in the daytime, especially since the audio/visual entertainment equipment never started working in coach class the entire trip. Whether it was jet lag, anxiety about seeing my family, or some other cause, I was again unable to sleep on the flight. We finally touched down in cold, blustery, New York, tired but on time, and happily called our spouses to inform them of our safe arrival.

Customs, from my perspective, was long and hectic, but Paulcy assured me that our experience was a comparative piece of cake – nothing was confiscated, no duties had to be paid, and the whole shebang actually ate up only about a half-hour of our expected four-hour layover.

With so much time to kill, and having just heard from Linds that our flight was still listed as normal, we decided to wait to find our gate until we had some lunch. As we passed the food court, greasy, fatty, cheesy BK Whoppers called to all three of us like mythical sirens, and we readily succumbed. After finishing my burger, I again went in search of a tournament bracket, conscientiously avoiding any TVs that would have shown scores to me prior to my filling one out. Dr. Allison actually found the March Madness issue of SI before I did, and graciously gave it to me. I picked my teams, and then went looking for our flight info.

What I saw on the flight board made me forget about my Final Four picks: every Delta flight to an east coast city, including our hop to Philly, was cancelled. In disbelief, I booked it back to my companions and the three of us returned to stare incredulously at the board – they were really all cancelled. Now disgusted that we had waited so long to check, we trucked to the other end of JFK to the already chaotic Delta counter. After twenty minutes in line, a haggard young Delta person explained in robotic fashion that an impending storm that might possibly start late in the evening was the cause of cancellation. With a predicted snowstorm to arrive on Friday, she could give us no guarantees that we would catch a flight sooner than Saturday, and since the claimed cause was weather, she continued, Delta owed us nothing but a one-way ticket from JFK to PHL sometime over the next year. We were stuck.

Since NYC is only a couple-hour drive to Philly, we chose to try to pick up our luggage and just rent a car to drive home. Unfortunately, the surly Delta baggage claim person downstairs insisted that finding our bags would be too difficult and sent us on our way with a phone number to call to have our baggage delivered – no signed paperwork, no claim checks, just a toll-free number. Trusting his expertise in the field, we took a train to the car rental area, where National had one full-size car remaining, at a price post-Katrina price-gougers would have admired. Fed up with the hassle, Dr. Allison paid it, we threw our carry-ons in the back and drove away.

Forty-five minutes into 5:00 rush-hour traffic, Paulcy finally connected to an Indian ESL student at the other end of the Delta 1-800 number we had been given. Astoundingly, he and his supervisor (after thirty minutes of hold time) both confirmed that some village was indeed missing its idiot – the Delta baggage guy had not only failed to locate our bags as he should have, but he also neglected to have us fill out the absolutely necessary baggage claim forms, without which, no business could be done over the phone. Paulcy about hit the roof when his new Indian friend advised that we return to JFK for said paperwork. He refused, hung up, and we resigned ourselves to the possibility that, unless the Philadelphia airport could help us the next day, we would likely never see our bags again.

Smiles returned when we reached Paulcy’s house and his family rushed out to greet us. Dr. Allison and I continued down the Turnpike, and about the same time I should have arrived home from the airport after our flight, he dropped me off at our condo with the promise to meet me the next day for a baggage-finding mission to PHL. With those plans set, I ran up the stairs through the apparently menacing, flight-cancelling drizzle to kiss my wife and boys for the first time in nearly three weeks – five minutes later, lost luggage was the last thing on my happy mind.

(Note: A real snow storm hit Friday, but clogged roads and cranky, delayed PHL passengers couldn’t stop Dr. Allison and me from obtaining the proper forms at the Delta office to have our bags delivered in the iffy event that they actually made it from NY. Late Saturday evening, our bags were all finally delivered in widely varied condition to our homes. And that officially ends the record of this immensely memorable trip)