Back to Pittsburgh (Saturday 4/1)
Worst travel day ever. The start and finish of this trip have been doozies, travel-wise. We left Lisbon early this morning, got to the airport, checked our bags, and got to Newark with no problem. Once in Newark, things disintegrated quickly. Our flight to Pittsburgh was delayed and delayed again; other flights were being cancelled; then Andrew discovered that OUR flight was cancelled by looking at his app, even before it was announced. Thus began a dash to other gates with Pittsburgh-bound flights, trying to get onto them, while Andrew tried to get through to United agents on the phone. We managed to get Mom and Dad on a flight that was about to close, but there was no room for us. We tried to get on standby for another flight, only to be met with a provision that we couldn't get on standby since we'd checked our bags, which led to me shrilly begging for empathy and common sense since there were, the gate agent told us, four empty seats on the flight. But then, once he'd f