A Delayed Beginning…

August 2

Original departure time: Wednesday, August 2 at 10:20pm.

3:54pm (PST): “Dear WOW air guest on flight WW 162 SFO-KEF 02AUG. We are sorry to inform you that your flight is delayed due to late arrival of incoming aircraft.”

New status: flight is 3 hours and 40 minutes delayed. New estimated time of departure: Thursday, August 3 at 2:00am.

4:40pm (PST): “Dear WOW air guest on flight WW 162 SFO-KEF 02AUG. We are sorry to inform you that your flight is heavily delayed. The reason for the delay is that we are facing technical difficulties with our aircraft.”

New status: flight is 8 hours and 55 minutes delayed. New estimated time of departure: Thursday, August 3 at 7:15am.

5:48pm (PST): “Dear WOW air guest on flight WW 162 SFO-KEF 02AUG. We regret to inform you that your flight today has been cancelled...”

7:38pm (PST): 44 minute phone call with WOW air (well, 33 minutes of listening to WOW air music and the same automated voice message while waiting to get through, and 11 minutes of talking with a WOW air representative). To our surprise, it was actually a successful phone conversation; they put us on the next available flight (24 hours after initial flight). They also attempted to give us a believable reason for the cancellation.

“Can you tell me what the reason for the flight being cancelled is?? Is there some chance of that happening to the next flight also..?”

“Yes, the flight was cancelled due to overbooking of the flight. No ma’am it will not be cancelled tomorrow.”

“Wait… you’re telling me that the flight was overbooked and so they cancelled it? That really doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yes ma’am, it was overbooked, and there were also technical difficulties. It is not likely to happen tomorrow.”

Yikes. That was the worst possible reason someone could have come up with for why a flight would have been cancelled. Anyway, our theory is that they had two half booked flights, wanted to merge them, so they cancelled the first to put people on the next. And sent out two increasingly dramatic delay notifications to let the passengers down easier.

August 3

6:45pm (PST): After a delicious sushi dinner with Monisha’s mom, we get dropped off at the airport…with a luxurious 3 ½ hours before our flight leaves. Fortunately, Josh provided us with a plentiful list of good movies downloadable on Netflix, so we already downloaded a significant supply onto Monisha’s laptop. Thanks, Josh! We watch The Prince of Egypt.

Then we brainstormed about a blog title.

11:00pm (PST): 24 ½ hours into our adventure aaaaannddd…we’re still in America!

11:05pm (PST): And we’re off!! Iceland, here we come!

Actual departure time: Thursday, August 3 at 11:05pm (PST); 24:45 after original departure time. Good thing we have over 3 months in Europe… what’s one day, right?

August 4

Monisha sleeps a decent amount on the plane, probably 4 solid hours. Nolan dozes here and there. Maybe 30 minutes. We get into Iceland at around 2:00pm (Icelandic time), which Is 7:00am (PST). It sounds reasonable to go to bed at around 9:00pm, which is 2:00pm (PST). So if we can just stay awake 7 more hours, we’ll be golden.. we decided Nolan should nap while Monisha drives into Reykjavík from the airport.

Speaking of which, for those of you who don’t know, we are driving a camper van around Iceland for a week. Well, for six days, now. We both learned to drive a manual about a week ago because renting the manual is $350 cheaper than renting an automatic. But thanks to Nathan lending us his car, we’ve gotten lots of practice. Nolan even got to experience driving up a San Francisco hill through a series of stop signs. After six stall outs followed by five California rolls through all the stop signs, he made it up!

Anyway, we are now on the plane and an hour and a half from Iceland! A somewhat rocky start to our adventures, but hey! What’s a 3 month travel story without any mishaps and challenges along the way? Might as well start ‘em coming early! To facing adversity! And to the true start to our adventure!

It’s just Monisha and Nolan! Monisha and Nolan and their adventures. Monisha and Nolan, forever and forever, a hundred days Monisha and Nolan. Monisha and Nolan runnin’ around and Monisha and Nolan time. Aaall day long forever. All, a hundred years Monisha and Nolan forever a hundred times. Over and over Monisha and Nolan adventures dot com www dot Monisha and Nolan dot com www Monisha and Nolan adventures all hundred years. Every minute Monisha and Nolan dot com. www hundred times Monisha and Nolan dot com. A hundred days www.monishaandnolanadventures.blogspot.com.