Just about everything that could have went wrong on our trip did go wrong! However, in all cases, the problems didn’t actually hurt us. In fact, mostly, they HELPED us! Allow me to expound:

1) When we got to Budget in San Jose to pick up the compact car I had reserved, the nice lady at the counter saw that there were two of us and said “Would you like a nice passenger van instead of your compact?” I said “No.” She said “How about a mini-van?” I said “No.” She said “Would you like to upgrade?” I said “No.” She said “Well we’re out of compacts, you’ll have to take the van or upgrade.” I said “I just want the compact that I reserved.” A stare down ensued, I waited her out, and eventually she said “Fine, I’ll have to give you a Sebring.” It turned out to be a Sebring convertible, which came in handy a few days later driving around on Mt. Tam! Jenny and I had a lot of fun with this one, asking each other repeatedly “would you like a nice passenger van?” and making the standard jokes about being able to take the reservation but not being able to hold the reservation.

2) When we got to the Hayes Mansion, where we were supposed to stay, they told us that they had somehow overbooked the hotel and we’d have to go elsewhere! I guess they felt bad about turning us around immediately and sending us someplace else that late at night, so they let us stay in some super fancy room in the actual mansion that night (the normal guest rooms are in other buildings). The next day they sent us to the Sainte Claire in downtown San Jose, which is clearly where we should have been staying all along. The room wasn’t as nice, but was fine, but more importantly it was in walking distance to just about everyplace we wanted to go, and also was right near a VTA stop. Plus: for all our “trouble”, the entire stay was FREE, paid for by the Hayes Mansion!

Nothing at all went wrong during our actual trip (except maybe for one critically poor choice of places to eat: Zyng? More like 髒!) But on our trip home, things started going wrong again:

3) After flying back home, I looked at the big board to figure out where our luggage was eventually going to spit out and stood and waited at the carousel. It hadn’t begun to move yet, so I was occupying my time by watching a pretty girl on the other side of the carousel that Jenny had thoughtfully pointed out to me. The strange thing about this girl is that she was standing next to a suitcase that looked exactly like ours! Or was it ours? I went over to her and confusedly asked “Is that your suitcase?” She probably thought I was crazy, but said “No.” I then asked, sort of to no one in particular, “Then how did it get here?” She decided I definitely was crazy, and moved away. I checked the tag, it really was ours, so I muttered “I’m just going to take it” and took it. The question is: How did it get there? It was there from the time we arrived at baggage claim, and we got there pretty fast. Could it have been on our plane, and got some sort of special handling? Or had it gotten lost, got on the wrong plane, and ended up there BEFORE us? And if so, why weren’t we on THAT plane? Strange. Anyway, we walked out with suitcase in hand while everybody else was still waiting for the carousel to even start moving.

4) Still in a daze trying to figure out what had happened with the luggage, we arrived at the car. I remember when we arrived at the airport the shuttle bus driver was waiting for us and I remarked to Jenny that that sort of thing makes me nervous and I start to forget to do important things, like lock the car. I remember making a point to lock it and then double check to make sure the door was locked before leaving… but I apparently FORGOT TO CLOSE THE WINDOW! Amazingly, the car was still in one piece, started right up, and apparently had no ill effects, except for a slightly damp driver’s seat. Incredible!