Now on to the story of my massively fucked up travel to and from Kal-i-forn-ia and how I nearly got arrested at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, AZ.

I really have to stop answering the phone when my brother calls. It's never good news. Yesterday my favourite uncle died. The funeral should've been today but has been pushed back to Thursday to allow a lot of relatives who live far away to get there, like me in Munich and Sis in France.

Apparently European airlines don't offer bereavement fares anymore except for travel originating in the US or Canada. I was looking at ticket prices starting at over €1400. I'd used every Web service and found nothing so I started making phone calls. Since the EU offices of many airlines were already closed and because they charge €0.12-0.28 per minute for the privilege of talking to them in order to give them more money and pay an additional "service charge" for that privilege, I opted to call the US offices.

It was a no-go on all accounts. The only option was to call the EU offices. Lufthansa gave me a number that was supposed to be manned until at least 8:00 p.m. I called, and for the low, low price of around €0.16/minute, I sat on hold for almost 10 minutes. Then someone answered.

x-posted to da brog