Monday, January 23, 2006

the Copenhagen Curse, the Helsinki Hex

We'll start with the good news. Kiyash and I arrived 3 hours early at Copenhagen International Airport this morning to try to talk our way into the back luggage room so we could find our own damn bags. It worked. We have our luggage! What a relief. We checked into our flight to Helsinki, handed over our luggage again (somewhat warily, but really--could they lose the same bags twice on the same trip? What were the odds?

Our flight from Helsinki to Copenhagen was scheduled for 9:30 AM. Our bags were ferried away for the plane to Helsinki.

At 9:20 AM, the SAS pilots went on strike.

o...m...g.

Okay, so we had a friend in passenger service who witnessed me sobbing hysterically ("5 days in the same clothes! We are going to the Artic Circle in clothes designed to be worn in SAN FRANCISCO!") and heard about the strike in advance. He sent someone to get JUST our bags off the Helsinki plane, booked us on a Finnair flight for 12:30 PM, and paged us over the airport loudspeaker to tell us what he'd done. Then, just to be safe, he left his post and came to the waiting area to find us himself.

It was actually quite dramatic. He said, "I'm going to do something for you now. Follow me. Don't ask any questions."

It was really really crazy.

Anyway, hopefully we take off in one hour for Helsinki. Will the Copenhagen Curse turn into the Helsinki hex, or have we escaped it? Stay tuned to Flickr...