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Well, I’m at an internet kiosk in Houston, because my flight from Newark was delayed.

I missed my connection and the nice people at Continental put me up in a hotel and paid for my tasty Texas Bar-B-Que meal.

I’ll be arriving in Venezuela tonight, a day late, but no less excited.

Actually, the whole airport experience was quite delightful. Here’s the story:

In Newark, I went to the customer service counter and asked to join the frequent flyer program. The very nice large Carribean-American woman helped me fill out the form. Then she said, “If I catch the guy who left his trash all over that counter, he won’t be happy!” (Note: don’t anger a large black woman… A thing I learned from Chumleys.)
So after I was done, I picked up that guys trash and threw it away. The people at the desk were happy, and I felt good doing something useful during my time stuck at the airport.

Now, when it became clear that I was going to miss my connection due to the delay, I went back to the desk and the lady recognized me and called me over.”What are you still doing here, honey?” She asked. I explained the whole situation, and she helped me look for alternatives… There was an alternate flight, but I’d arrive in Caracas without my luggage because it was already loaded… better to stay overnight in houston and with my luggage. And, “because I was so nice earlier, she’d send a message ahead and make sure they’d give me a hotel for the night… they don’t do that usually.”

So I arrived in the wonderful city of Houston, with wonderful weather and good food. The person at the desk pointed me to the customer service desk where they indeed did have my information, and along with the non-english speaking customers they would put me up in a hotel.

And get this, the woman’s name at the customer service desk???? — Mini. Yes. Thats right. Her name was Mini.

So now I’m back at the airport waiting for my flight to Caracas. I’m living out of my carryon which only has books and bottled water in it… I need some mouthwash.

My mobile phone only forawrds my calls to my new international phone, so I won’t be able to receive calls (or voice mail) until I hit Spain. Leave messages here and I’ll see them. Email might be a little tough as well until I get my laptop to a full service internet access place and not just kiosks. So leave messages here if you want me to get them.

ok, Off to Venezuela… where I don’t know the language at all. I hope I’ll meet a nice person like me to help myself out, like those poor people who didn’t speak a word of english who missed their flights and stayed at my hotel.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Around The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.