Off to Shanghai

I am on my way to Shanghai. While still in bed this morning, I got an alert from the air company that my flight was cancelled. They promised that they were working to rebook me on another flight. I should just wait for info as it would come.

I don't like passive waiting, especially since I understand that the air company is not as eager as I am to have me there in time. They also try to avoid costs. I have learnt to take all the steps I can. That radically raises the chance to get you where you need to go in reasonable time.

Part of my allergy to passive waiting is probably my years of living and traveling in the Soviet Union/Russia. Delays were very common and it was impossible to get any usable information. They would announce in the loudspeakers systems that the plane is delayed and that there will be new information in two hours. When time was up a new announcement came, "New information in two hours".

No one has ever described the apathetic mood that besets the traveller stranded in a soviet airport as the Polish author Ryszard Kapuscinski in his book Imperium. A recommended read by many accounts, if you ask me.

Since we are not trapped in a failing soviet system, we could with some very good help from staff at the missions department rebook. I now instead got a ticket via Dubai, and not Copenhagen. The flight was scheduled three hours earlier than the original flight. Packing, showering and getting dressed in record time and off to the airport. Something I am really happy for is that I live 25 minutes from Sweden's biggest airport. It makes traveling a lot smoother,

Now in Dubai for some hours at early night and then on to Shanghai for some busy days.