allyson and bryan

While we've certainly been to some exotic locales over the past five months, something about a four-hour layover in Addis Ababa Interntational Airport strikes me as especially freakin' kooky. We're in transit here en route to Tanzania, as you know, just coming off eight hours on a 2:00 a.m. Ethiopian Airlines flight that we almost didn't make.

(The story, in brief, goes something like this: At 3:00 p.m. on Friday, June 30, we receive an e-mail from Expedia alerting us to an "itinerary change." By 5:00 p.m., after speaking with a U.S.-based Expedia rep who cluelessly guesses that our flight has "been cancelled," followed by repeated attempts to call the Bangkok office of Ethiopian airlines, we catch a cab directly to the airport. Approximately two hours and 200 hundred stilted conversations later, we learn from the Ethiopian office manager that it's our reservation, not the flight itself, that's been cancelled -- due to the fact that we did not, um, "reconfirm" our seats three to five days beforehand. Needless to say, we each held in our sweaty little hands a ticket for that very flight, one that was paid for in full ($600!) and states clearly, "check-in required" but fails to mention any freak clause that would result in total erasure of our seats. At 11:45 p.m., after nine hours of bemoaning the lack of any other flights that day accompanied by much stressing, wheedling, begging, threatening, attempted bribery and perhaps a false near-tear or two -- we are informed that we're at last re-booked on the "critically full" flight. It's worth noting, I think, that of 17 domestic and international flights since February 6, on airlines ranging from Air Fiji to Bangkok Airways, this issue has never once come up -- and of course, never once have we so absolutely positively had to be somewhere on time. How could our safari jeep leave without us?!)

Anyway, here we are, gratefully, awaiting our next re-booked flight onward to Kilimanjaro airport. Luckily they have Internet in Ethiopia. We have just enough time to be bored at the duty-free, but not quite enough to peek at the city, which I would've loved to do. I'm curious.

Oh and, if you want to a bit more detail on our itinerary for the next five weeks, check out Jen's newly-minted blog.That's what's coming up next.

PS: Dear Expedia, Please provide a toll-free INTERNATIONAL help number since you sell tickets ALL OVER THE WORLD and calling 1-800-USELESS for five minutes cost us nearly $20 from Bangkok. Thank you!

stars, they're just like allyson @ 2:09 AM