overbooked-flights and the perks that can accompany giving up one's seat and flying home a few days later

a cool castle in Bavaria that we saw courtesy of our extended stay

I was supposed to be home by now, but our plane was overbooked, and several members of my traveling party chose to tour central Europe partly on the airline's money.  I'll fill in a few more details, but we skied or snowboarded (snowboarding for me) in Bavaria and hit tourist spots in Frankfurt and Munich. 

Before we're finished, we will have spent time in Brussels, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen before flying home.

Alyssa, my brother Matthew, my former friend Tim ( we go from besties to not speaking to each other on a semi-regular basis to the point that it's no longer awkward for others around us when we're on the outs), my uncle Jerry, my dad, and I had the luxury of being able to give up our seats and take the perks the airline offered for our flexibility. 

Alyssa and I are good friends and are sharing hotel rooms on this extension of our trip, but by day, she's spending most of her time with Matthew, as they're becoming something of an item by day. The two of them would probably love to be an item by night as well, sharing a room, but on this family-oriented trip, with Alyssa's parents being the conservative Mormons they are, and with my dad and Uncle Jerry wishing to remain on speaking terms with them, it's not going to happen. It is my choice not to be the third wheel on their tandem bicycle, so my day activity companions are limited. I can hang out with my dad and Uncle Jerry. Imagine that. If you conceptualized it, you realize that it's not going to happen. I could conceivably do a solo tour of the European cities we're visiting, but neither my dad or my uncle Jerry would be OK with it. 

My remaining choice is to tour with the person with whom I'm not speaking. It sounds logistically difficult-to-impossible, but we're making it work. We're not silly to the point of texting each other when one of us needs to find a restroom because we absolutely can't talk to each other, but conversation is limited to logistics. Tim s paying for everything because the cause of our current rift involved my having to pay for the two of us to ski in Innsbruck because my nosy and controlling mother told Tim that I needed to pay for his and my own skiing fees because it was my illness that caused me to be unable to ski on the two days that the extended group skied in Innsbruck. Tim foolishly listened to my mom's ludicrous instructions regarding payment of skiing fees. 

Even my dad agrees that he and my mom should have paid my fees and Tim's as well if they required that I have a companion while skiing. he didn't know what my mom told Tim. no one else did. Tim's dad, Uncle Jerry, was irate about the situation. he told tim that if he goes somewhere with a girl, he should pay for himself and the girl; to require the girl to pay for him should have been demeaning for Tim. Tim just said he was following my mom's wishes. Uncle Jerry said it didn't matter. I got my money back from tim. I don't know if it was actually his money, his father's money, or my dad's money. I don't really care as long as my mom didn't get her way.

My mom is the last person who should be critical of anyone else for getting sick on occasion, as she's the Kidney Stone Queen of North America who has had Grave's Disease and Leukemia. I cannot begin to accurately list the illnesses she's had in the past two years, so I will not even try. Suffice it to say she's caught just about  every bug that's flown or crawled within five-hindred miles of her. so who is she to make an issue of my having experienced a relapse of myositis?

My brother, in his toddler wisdom, expressed it best when he heard my mom complaining on the phone to a friend that she had to cancel a trick-or-treating outing with a friend and her child because, in her words, "Alexis is sick for about the thousandth time in this calendar year!" (Matthew and the other child still trick-or-treated. I think the fathers took them while my mom stayed home with me.)

Matthew interrupted Mom's telephone conversation to assert his opinion. "Why you mad at Baby Lexus cuz she sick again? [Please ignore Matthew's not-yet-three-year-old syntax.] It not her fault. You the one that had a bad baby." At two-years-plus of age, Matthew hadn't yet deduced that two biological parents were required in order to conceive a child. In his mind, my mother had single-handedly produced a defective product because I was frequently sick. Now, after the fact, I'm somewhat inclined to agree with Matthew. All my illnesses are my mom's fault. Actually, it would be neither here nor there, except that she shouldn't foot the bill for Matthew's and my cousin Joshua's (who my parents have legally adopted) skiing but make me pay for it myself just because I had to ski on a different day due to illness. 

We toured one city today. we'll catch a short flight the first thing tomorrow morning, then tour another city. We'll do the same thing one more time, then hop on a longer flight home. I'll you tell you more about the frivolity (or alleged frivolity) once i've returned home and had at least seven consecutive hours of sleep.