A short followup to my travel woes that I wrote about the other day....
It took almost three days, but I was finally able to get through to United Airlines today, to reschedule my trip back home to Japan. I'd originally been scheduled to visit a dear friend with a two-day stopover in Milwaukee, but that had to be canceled when United decided it would rather use the plane that was supposed to service Cleveland to instead service its hub in Chicago. (Probably a smart business move that benefits the most people, but the short end of the stick is the short end of the stick, and that's what I got in this case.) The best they could come up with is a flight to San Francisco on Friday, and then from there to Japan on Saturday.
I asked what I'm supposed to do in San Francisco between the 11pm arrival and the 11am departure; the lady said sheepishly that I could just stay at the airport. Sigh. I went and booked my own hotel. My flight was not canceled due to weather, but because United felt like using the plane elsewhere, so they should have covered the hotel, I'd think.
At least I'm “stuck” in a comfortable place at my folks' place here in frozen Ohio, helping out around the house between trying to call the airlines and taking pictures of frozen birds. So many thousands stuck at airports had it so very much worse. I'm only out two hotel nights, and I missed meeting friends I'd not seen in a decade, but I can remedy that with another trip when it gets warmer.