Welcome to hell, here's your boarding pass

I got home last night after a traveling day that began at 4:00 am in Sofia, Bulgaria, and ended a little more than 24 hours later in my house, which was so hot it smelled like there'd been a fire. My dental floss was melted and the tiles in the bathroom were too hot to stand on.

I guess I shouldn't have left the air-conditioner turned off while I was gone - but for whatever reason, my heat pump is now burned out.

Random airport beefs while waiting for a callback from the emergency HVAC guy:

• Of the eight flights I was on, only the two run by Turkish Airlines (Sofia-Istanbul) were on time. In Newark last night they were, evidently as usual, cancelling trips left and right, and the refreshingly frank gate attendant told me my flight (Newark to RDU) is late EVERY day, at least one hour and often up to three.
  
  
• Alitalia had a ridiculous blowout when our plane failed its inspection, another plane was flown in two hours late, then there was a mad fracas at the new gate because desperate attendants directed irate passengers to another, remote location to get their boarding passes changed, except the computer at the remote location had Blue Screen of Death so the lady over there was sending us back. At the new gate there was a printer jam and all the computers had to be rebooted. This was followed by a stampede.
  
  Eventually, after another half hour or so, we had new boarding passes which looked just like the old ones and had the same seat assignments.
  
  
• Well, strangely, the biggest problem with this was, we were so thirsty during our 2.5 hour delay. Nobody is allowed, of course, to bring water to the airport, because water, along with shampoo, is a Danger Fluid. However, since we'd been in Bulgaria where (contrary to advance information) they spurn the euro and want only leva, we didn't have any euros, so we couldn't buy any water. Eventually I stole a used paper cup from somewhere and filled it with lukewarm water from the bathroom.
  
  
• The two things that kept my airport rage at bay were (1) my daughter and (2) crocheting of net bags.

For more about that, see the next post!