Ah, yes, I was stuck overnight last time when I flew through Washington. And I did not learn! I picked Washington again (the Space Trains are way too cool). Immigration at this airport sucks … it’s really terrible. I was standing in line for more than three (3!) hours this time. This was ok, because I had a nice chat with a woman from Suse aehem Novell – besides Aaaaahhhh, my connection flight left 2hrs after arrival. Great! Ok, I missed this one. United only had another flight 10pm, I would have to wait 4 hrs and miss the last shuttle to Bloomington. Hmm, I pulled up rule 242 – they did not care at all – a**h***s. Fortunately I saw that another flight ti Indy was delayed by three hours, so I went back to the clerk and was re-booked to this one. Man, couldn’t they do this by themselves???? I took a space train then and just arrived for the departure of this one :).
A space-train 🙂 (they call it “mobile lounge”).
They even managed to “forward” my bag. Hmm, at least in front of the plane … this delayed the start by 10 minutes. I think it was because there was *nobody* to pick it up *grin*.
When I arrived in Indy, I realized that I would have to wait 1:40hrs for the next shuttle bus. Oh man, so I decided to try the cool agreement that IU has with National ($25 for a rental). It worked (kind of, I was stuck at the checkout for 30 min because they did not accept my debit card together with my Emerald club). But IU – better the contract – certainly rules. I got a free upgrade by two classes and picked the fattest car available. The poor guy I was chatting with in the bus picked an economy about half of the size than my car right next to me (and paid much much more). So I got a Nissan X-Terra (2005 version):
This machine has a lot of power and was thus much fun to drive :). And it was much bigger than most cars on the road (yes, even in America). I was tempted to just ram another car from the street ;-). Including taxes, I paid $32 for the rental and $9 for gas. A very reasonable price (and it’s faster than the limo). I guess I could save on gas with a smaller car … but hey, where’s the fun here? I like National (much more than Enterprise actually)! I arrived after 28hrs travel in Bloomington.