I said goodbye to my family this morning at the Beijing airport at about 7 a.m. They had an… interesting… experience in China for the last ten days, but the trip ended well. The flight from Beijing to Chicago was overbooked so my family was given a free upgrade to business class. Wide seats, improved entertainment systems, gourmet meals, everything you would expect a $2,700+ ticket to provide.
I returned to the Shiz via a D-Train (a luxury I equate to flying business class) and this evening I got this email from my little sister:
Dearest Tyler,
We are still in China and not hating it. After being upgraded and basically looking forward to the best plane ride of our lives and then ordering a scrumptious free gourmet breakfast on board, our plane caught on fire. Well, the cockpit was smoking and it smelled like melted wires. Counts as a fire. We turned around after being in the air for just over ten minutes. We had to taxi to a remote part of the tarmac and had to climb out of the plane via portable stairs and had to be bused to a waiting lounge while they continued to have no idea what happened or when we’d be back on the plane. Eventually they had us re-enter the country and cancelled our departure stamp and American Airlines put us up at the Hilton across the road. Yes, the hotel we were going to stay at last night. Here’s the kicker. They didn’t have any rooms with three beds….so they gave us a two floor townhouse suite. Fuck. Yes. The showers are amazing. They finally gave us information about when exactly we’ll be leaving. Our flight will be at 10 am tomorrow after the regular Beijing to OHare flight gets out. I best get my pancakes I was denied today. Wish you were here! (But instead you are in The Shiz). I took plenty of pictures so you’ll be fully jealous once I upload them to Facebook.
LOVE,
Megan
PS. No. This is not a joke.
Yeah, getting upgraded is rare, but also having a fire followed by a free room in Beijing for New Years Eve is ridiculous. My only question is, why didn’t they call me so I could come back to Beijing?