to hell and back

I had a bumpy ride, to say the least, when coming back from Portugal. For starters my flight from Porto to London got delayed for 6 hours, immediately making me loose the connection flight in London to LA. Hence still at Porto, I had to find an alternative way to London. Once the delayed was announced in the airport speakers, people started to spread out. Grab their phones call their relatives and let them know what was happening. I simply needed to find a quick alternative to be in London before 2pm. Hence I headed to customs and explained the officer that I needed to leave the boarding area to find myself another flight to London. He was a bit reluctant in letting me out, but then he felt kind of pressured since I was not the only one wanting to leave. Eventually he did open the gates. Back to the airport's departure zone I started looking for an alternative flight.

I must say this was surprisingly easy: in one of those small travel agencies counters I immediately found the answer. There was a flight leaving at 10am arriving around 12pm to Gatwick, London. This would give me enough time to go to Heathrow before 2pm. I booked that flight, and went to try and recover my luggage...

Porto, good mood before the departure!	The flight delay announcement ruined the mood...

Finally at Gatwick I got a cab to Heathrow. I slept practically the entire journey, but I do remember to see an-all white freezing landscape! From here on things started to look a little bit more on track. It took us a little bit more time to board, due to the precautionary measures against terrorist attacks, but everybody was extremely patient and polite. While in line, I met a fellow labmate that was traveling from India. Started is journey on Sunday morning, he said. Uau! And I thought I was having a bad time...

Eventually we all boarded and, as usual in this sort of situations, the captain apologized for the delay and added: "we will make our best to gain the lost time during the flight!". Boy, I was happy to hear his words!

LAX, waiting for the shuttle (zombie mood).	LA, Union station two more hours of waiting... train delay!

Arrived to LA, we had to go through the usual procedure (what are you doing in the US? ... Study? What area are you studying? Show me your I-20, bla bla bla). Nothing extraordinary here. I remember we got to Union Station around 9.30pm (local time) and bought a train ticket for 10.10pm... This is going well, I thought to myself. I'll be in bed around midnight. WRONG!
Shortly after we came to know that the train was delayed for almost 2 hours: expected time of arrival 11.35pm. Oh dear Lord, what else will happen tonight!?

Disappointed, tired and sleepy, we decided to go for a bite. Just outside the station there is a Denny's open all night. I got some onion rings and a soda. My Indian friend was a little bit hungrier than me. He missed all the meals from London to LA. Slept the whole time :) So he got himself a burger with fries. The kitchen was slow, and after the snack it was almost time to take the train. Needless to say that we slept practically for the entire journey. At Solana Beach he had a friend picking him up, and got me ride home. After all, we're almost neighbors at Mesa residential apartments!

Lesson learnt: DO NOT USE low-cost airlines when traveling with connection flights.