getting here

I left Memphis on the afternoon of January 24th. Short layover in Atlanta, 6 hour layover in London... at which point I almost did not gain entry into Morocco. My return flight was booked for August 11. Since I did not yet have my employment contract or employment visa in my possession I could only be considered a tourist, and thus, stay only 3 months legally. Delta had gotten me as far as London, but British Airways refused to let me check in without a return flight within the 3 month time limit. At first I was told that Delta (grand coordinator of my 3 airline itenerary) would charge me a change fee. When I politely informed them that I had no money and would be taking up residence in Gatwick Airport a la Tom Hanks in "The Terminal," they were kind enough to work things out for me. The Delta agent put a "dummy" date of April 23rd into the system and put some special stickers onto my paper tickets. I had been hoping to use my 6 hour London layover to find a way into the city for some lunch as I've never been to London. After I finally sorted everything out between Delta and British Airways, I decided to play it safe and make my way to the gate area to be sure they were indeed going to let me check-in. So, I grabbed some really expensive airport fare for lu7nch, browsed my last English language bookstore for a while, and nodded of in the waiting area like a vagrant.

Now, the Delta agent who arranged my "dummy" return date and put stickers onto my tickets told me that I could simply peel the stickers off and show up to the airport in August as planned. Somehow, I didn't have faith it would go that smoothly. Royal Air Maroc is taking me from Agadir to Casablanca, then I'm back on Delta from Casablanca back into the States. I wanted to go to the airport here before April 23 just to check things out. To verify that they wouldn't see April 23 in the system and say, "she's a no show - cancel her."

Almogar airport is situated between Agadir and Tiznit to the South. It's a decent trek out of the city to get there. My boss, a handy guy to know, says he has a friend at the Royal Air Maroc ofice in Agadir. He goes over there with my tickets in hand, and Royal Air Maroc says everythings A-OK. They even peeled the stickers off for me.

I'm going on faith that all is well with the Delta leg of the trip. I suppose the worst case scenario is that Mulay Said has to buy me a whole new ticket home.

I do love free travel.