Day 53

The flight back to Portland started with a fiasco. First, it was pouring rain. Then, we started walking toward downtown to what we thought was the closest bus stop in that direction. However, the roads split up and we apparently took the wrong street and could not find a bus stop, and ended up walking all the way to the BART station.

Several people told us that taking BART was the best way to go to the Oakland Airport. We were aghast to find the station locked. We asked someone waiting nearby what was going on. He said he thought that BART opened at 8:00! So we flagged down a bus whose driver confirmed that fact. No one had warned us of this! The bus driver took us to the cross bay terminal and it appeared there were no buses headed towards Oakland so we ended up taking a taxi. Fare: $50!

Then, at the airport, the express check-in did not work so we entered the normal ticket counter and discovered that the attendant could not find our reservation. He kept checking different dates and other variations and finally came up with the solution: our name had been entered backwards. So finally we were on our way, feet and outer layer of clothes soaked.

Once back in Portland we made our way home without a hitch. Maitri had a shower and we were off to the Easter dinner at Phil and Pat’s.