all roads lead to home... eventually

Imagine what it feels like to be in a foreign country, getting ready to go home, only to hear the lady at Baggage Check-In tell you "I'm sorry, the gates are already closed for that flight, we can't let you on."

Yea. That's what happened to us yesterday. We got to the airport a little late, because one of the trams we had needed wasn't running that morning. Still, we had 40 minutes before the flight took off. But the fight was overbooked, and so the gates had already been closed. Of course, it's tourist season in Amsterdam, which means that every flight from now through the end of July was also overbooked.

We eventually got seated on a flight from Amsterdam to Dulles/Washington D.C. From there, we had to take a shuttle to Regan Int'l to catch our flight to Detroit. Sounds pretty simple, yea?
Except that our flight from Amsterdam to Washington D.C. left two hours late because of mechanical difficulties, so we landed in D.C. about 20 minutes before our Detroit flight was supposed to take off. Dulles and Regan Intl's are, at minimum, 30 minutes away, so we weren't gonna make it.

We found out there was another flight leaving at 8pm. It was 7pm, and we still had to get to Regan Intl'. Enter the best shuttle/taxi driver I've ever seen. This guy saved our butts! Seriously. He made to Regan Int'l in less than 30 minutes. We got on the 8pm flight, and landed in Detroit at about 9:30. Hard core props to our taxi driver. Had we missed the 8pm flight, we'd have had to stay the night in D.C.

That was my first time in D.C., too. On the ride to Regan Int'l, I got to see the Washington Monument, and a couple other well-known buildings, so that was cool.