Irish False Start
In what will surely be the first of many travel hiccups during my trip, I never made it out of DC today. I boarded my plane to Madrid on the Irish airline, Aer Lingus, only to be told by the pilot in a beautiful Irish accent that one of there was a safety pin missing from one of the emergency exit doors and that the emergency slide had been accidentally deployed. After deboarding, we were told that one of the exit doors would have to be declared inoperative, thereby limiting the allowed passenger capacity of the aircraft. Chaos ensued and I decided to volunteer to give up my seat in order to get a monetary voucher towards future travel and to ensure a spot for me on the flight the next day. So, back home to Silver Spring tonight and then back to Dulles tomorrow.