Detour in Doha

Today was pretty much any travelers nightmare!

To start, I had to wake up at 1:30 am to get to the airport and do all that stuff for a 4:25 am flight. Everyone at the hotel was money hungry for tips and the mosquitoes were out in full force... no big deal, I was just glad to get the hell out of Sri Lanka. Longest two weeks of my life and I don't think I've ever wanted to leave a place as much as there!

So I get to the airport and start the check in process when the guy's taking longer to give me a boarding pass than they normally do.... "madam, you're ticket is for 14th May."

Excuse me!?! WHAT!?!

How did I manage to book my departure for the wrong month!?! But I did... so I had to scramble around the airport at 2:45 in the morning trying to fix this fiasco. The counter was telling me I had to call my travel agent and my travel agent was telling me they should be able to change it and just charge me the fee. I pretty much lost it. I couldn't help but cry when I was talking to the supervisor about fixing the situation. I wanted so badly to just leave that place and now I was being told I wouldn't be able to leave until the next day at the earliest. Long story short, I had to bite the bullet and buy another ticket. This was not my first choice, but I was desperate to leave and needed to get to Johannesburg to get ready for the safari and make the meeting tonight, etc. etc. etc.

Well, as it turns out... the flight from Sri Lanka to Doha was late.... late enough that I missed my connecting flight. And of course, to keep with the theme for the day, they didn't have another flight to Johannesburg until early on the 15th. Part of me wanted to cry, but part of me was just relieved I wasn't still stuck in Sri Lanka, so I did my best to stay calm. I am not above begging and I pretty much begged the agent about there being another flight earlier. Because today, there's an orientation meeting at 5 pm J. burg time and the safari leaves tomorrow morning at 7:30 am. So, my flight out of Doha leaves at 1:20 am and I arrive into Johannesburg at 8:30. I've already emailed the tour company asking what to do about this situation and am waiting to hear back. All of this happened before 7 am... that makes for a LONG day!

But my God, He loves me a LOT!! Because it was essentially the airlines fault that I missed my flight and the next flight isn't until tomorrow, I've been put up in a hotel. So I was thinking, Ok, it'll probably be some typical corporate hotel close to the airport with a view of the airport.....

OH NO!!!

I'm staying in a posh hotel, in what I'm assuming is the downtown area and right across the street from the water front. Very cool I say to myself as we pull up. Still thinking it'll probably just be a small room with a view of the construction site next door......

OH NO!!!

They put me in a suite... a huge suite at that!! And I have a view of the waterfront!! This room is bigger than my apartment at home, it has TWO bathrooms, and yes, I've used both! And the bed, OMG, the bed is like a cloud. And the shower looks phenomenal. I don't think you can really REALLY appreciate a good shower till you haven't had one for months! I even got meal vouchers. And the food is..... I'm stuffed! Everything I've been craving from home, pretty much, is here. In fact, this whole place is like being at home. It's even diverse. I was eating breakfast thinking, this must be what the UN is like. All different kinds of nationalities!!! At home there's diversity in skin color, but this was actually different nationalities and languages and cultures, all crashing together in a hotel in Doha, Qatar!

With the way the day started, I had pretty much reached the end of my rope... I wanted to come home. I was done... I quit!! That's where I was this morning. When I got to the hotel and saw the room and the view, I cried tears of gratitude, awe and appreciation. That my God loves me and cares about me enough to pamper me to this degree.... He continues to amaze me!!