A thunderstorm, an earthquake, and a hurricane

I returned to Germany on Monday morning after spending two weeks in the United States (business trip).  The trip began with extreme of weather at John F. Kennedy Airport (New York City) and ended with extreme weather at Washington Dulles International Airport (Washington, D.C.).  Sandwiched somewhere in the middle was a rare east-coast earthquake that was felt all the way from North Carolina to Toronto.

In the past, I have always flown between Frankfurt and Dulles on non-stop flights.  The government's contracted carrier is United but I am allowed to take Lufthansa flights as long as they have a United code-share.  This time, I decided to try a connection through JFK in New York (Lufthansa has ordered fifteen Airbus A380 airplanes and one of them flies daily between Frankfurt and New York).  I wanted to experience a modern airplane big enough to hold 526 people so I booked the Lufthansa flight to JFK with a connecting flight from JFK to Dulles.

Unfortunately, there was a small problem.  The connecting flight I wanted was scheduled to leave for Dulles 101 minutes after the first flight was scheduled to arrive and JFK enforces a minimum connection time of 105 minutes for connections that follow inbound international flights (passengers have to clear customs and re-check their bags so there does need to be some time built into this process).  Since the flight I wanted was not a legal booking, it could not be booked in the computer.  The next flight to Dulles (ie, the first legal booking) followed a six-hour layover.  If I wanted to fly the A380 to JFK, this would be the earliest option for connecting to Dulles.  I booked the later flight (the one with the six-hour layover) but I not-so-secretly hoped to be able to show up at United's ticket counter ahead of the earlier flight (the one with the 101-minute layover) to ask if it had any available seats.

The eight-hour flight on the A380 was really nice -- very quiet and great in-flight entertainment (between movies, TV shows, and music, there were at least one hundred different options and everything was available on-demand (meaning I could pause the movie if I got up to go to the bathroom) via a 10-inch touch screen (large by airplane standards)).  Each seat had a USB port that could be used to charge an iPod or some other personal electronic device.  The food was not great but it certainly was not any worse than anything I have had in economy seating on other airlines.

I knew my plan to take an earlier connecting flight to Dulles was in jeopardy when the captain told us that the plane would be landing ten to fifteen minutes late because of thunderstorms in New York.  I had chosen a seat near the front of the airplane so I could be one of the first people off the airplane.  This worked out well and I was subsequently one of the first people to clear customs.  Then I had to wait for my checked luggage (this is the standard practice for incoming international flights to the United States -- passengers have to wait for their bag(s) and then re-check them with the appropriate airline).  Unfortunately, I had to wait for almost 30 minutes to get my bag.  I guess when there are 526 people on an airplane, there are a lot of bags.  Because it took such a long time to get my bag, I had a pretty good idea that I was not going to be able to make my preferred connecting flight.

Each of the airlines had a bag re-checking counter next to the baggage retrieval counter so passengers would  not have to carry their bags through the airport.  I spoke with the United representative and explained that I wanted a seat on an earlier flight.  He told me to hurry to Terminal 7 (we had landed at Terminal 1) and to keep my luggage with me.  He explained that when I got to the United counter at Terminal 7, they would either put me (and my checked bag) on the earlier flight or they would take my bag and send it off to be included with the later flight that was actually part of my itinerary.  If I had given him my checked bag, the only option would have been to put it on the later flight since this was the scheduled itinerary I had booked with United.  I thought about just giving him my bag and resigning myself to taking the later flight because I knew it was getting close to the point where I would not be able to make the earlier flight.  But I decided to try for it anyway.  So I kept my bag with me and hopped on the airport train that would take me to Terminal 7.

It took about twenty minutes to get to Terminal 7.  When the train exited Terminal 1, I could see for the first time how hard it was raining.  I rushed to the United check-in counter, arriving about 20 minutes before my preferred flight had been scheduled to depart.  I knew I was probably too late to make this flight but I asked about it anyway.  It was then that I learned that this flight had been canceled because of the thunderstorms.  I was further told that the later flight on which I was ticketed (the one with the six-hour layover) had already been delayed three hours with a very good possibility that it too would be canceled (but the decision about canceling the flight would not be made until several hours later).

At this point I had to think about my options.  I could sit around for nine hours and hope for a late flight to Dulles which would be followed by driving an hour to my hotel just south of Baltimore.  A very real possibility with this option was finding out late in the evening that the flight had been canceled and then I would have to spend the night in New York (this would almost certainly cause me to miss some of my work meetings on Monday morning).  Another option was to rent a car and drive to Baltimore.  I did not want to do this either -- I was tired and it was raining really hard.  I choose the third option -- the United gate agents (who were fantastic, by the way) helped me navigate the New York subway system to get to Penn Station and from there I bought a ticket for an Amtrak train to Baltimore.  Before I left the airport I called my boss to explain the situation and make sure there were no problems with modifying my travel schedule in this way.

When I got on the train that took me to Penn Station, I realized that the fact that I had not re-checked my luggage in Terminal 1 had worked out rather well for me.  If I had re-checked my luggage at Terminal 1, I would have had to make a separate trip back to Dulles at some point on Monday to retrieve my bag.

I bought my train ticket from an automated kiosk without ever talking to a person.  The train had pretty comfortable seats and free WiFi (which I used to cancel my rental car reservation at Dulles airport and send a few emails).

From the train station, I took a free shuttle to BWI Airport and then I took a different free shuttle to the rental car facility where I picked up a car and drove to my hotel.  I arrived at the hotel around 9:30PM eastern time on Sunday night (it felt like 3:30AM to me -- I had left my house in Germany 19.5 hours earlier).  I was exhausted and had to be at work at 7:30 the next morning so I went to sleep and tried to get adjusted to the new time zone.  I found out later that the delayed flight from JFK did eventually take off (it landed at Dulles at about the same time I checked in to my hotel) and that the rainfall at JFK on Sunday set a new record for measured rain in one day.

I had meetings the first week (15-19 August) and then I was in a training class the second week (22-26 August).  Since I had a weekend with no work responsibilities, I drove to North Carolina after work on Friday night and visited with friends and family in the area before driving back to Maryland on Sunday night. On Saturday I drove into Raleigh and bought the boys some much-needed Wolfpack shirts (football season is about to start!).

The training class was a review for people who had been scheduled to take the CISSP exam.  Everybody else in the class was scheduled to take the six-hour, 250-question test on Tuesday, 6 September (giving them 11 days to study for the test) but I would already be back in Germany on this date so I made arrangements to take the test on the morning of Sunday, 28 August in Reston, Virginia (near Dulles airport) and then fly back to Germany on Sunday night.  I was not happy about only having one day to study for the test but this was a better option than waiting until the end of September (the next time the test is being offered in Germany).

On Tuesday afternoon, our class was in the middle of a short break when the building began to shake.  It was pretty clear that we were experiencing a minor earthquake.

We went outside, came back in about ten minutes later, and resumed the class.  About 45 minutes later, the building managers came into our class and told us that they were sending everybody home.  It seemed kind of silly at that point (especially since it would put our class behind schedule) but we all packed up our books and I went back to my hotel to watch the news.

By Friday, the earthquake was old news and the news headlines had been replaced with stories about Hurricane Irene's impending arrival along the east coast of the United States.

I spent most of Saturday trying to study for the test while also keeping up-to-date on the weather report.  It was still possible that the test would be canceled but I had to make sure I was prepared to take it.

As it turned out, the area surrounding Dulles airport ended up getting a lot of rain and some strong wind gusts but my hotel never lost power and the test was not canceled.  I took the test on Sunday morning (after staying up until 2:30AM to study and getting up at 5:30AM to study some more) and then drove to Dulles Airport to catch at 7PM flight (a Boeing 767 operated by United) back to Germany.  I was exhausted from not sleeping much the night before but, as is usually the case, I was not able to sleep much on the overnight flight back to Germany.  The flight arrived in Frankfurt at 9AM local time on Monday morning.  I have spent the rest of the week feeling tired and jet-lagged.  Despite this, it is definitely good to be home again.