On the Unexpected

I knew it would happen eventually. No big trip could happen without (at least) one. It’s basically a law of nature: the unavoidable logistical nightmare. Sometimes it’s lost luggage, or a stolen bag with your passport in it. Sometimes you’re too sick to make your flight, or the hotel lost your reservation and is booked for the night. And sometimes, like this time, a tragedy happens as you’re flying over Russia and they divert your flight to Shanghai back 3 and a half hours to Anchorage. And you miss your first connection. And the night in the hotel you booked. And your second connection the next morning. And the Delta reps at the Marriott they put you up in tell you they can’t help and you have to call their reservations line. And the customer service rep on the reservations line tells you they can’t help and you have to speak to a rep from the airport. And you wake up the next morning to find that Delta thinks you and your partner are currently on a flight to Seoul (of all places) that they never told you they booked for you.

I knew it would happen eventually, so in that way, it was expected. But I didn’t expect it would happen so soon. This honeymoon kick-off turned into a real kick in the pants. But, as I told Aaron’s parents as they watched us scramble to prep for the trip a week ago, spilling Red Bull all over the car and forgetting our towels in their bathroom, we’re a couple that knows how to improvise. We roll with the punches (or the kicks, in this case).

So we woke up this morning in good spirits and embraced the fact that no trip is an adventure without the unexpected. Sure, we will probably not get to Chiang Mai until a day or two after we were planning to. We’ll miss some of the wonderful things we were planning to do there. But we got to see the rosy light of Alaska’s permanent winter crepescule reflected off the snow of its mountains. And tonight we’ll treat ourselves to some dumplings (my favorite) in a nice, authentic restaurant in Shanghai and perhaps find a place to learn the dance moves of the Shanghainese (had to Google that demonym). And we’ll go to bed not knowing for sure what’s going to happen next, because that’s half the fun of a trip like this one.