Hey, it wouldn't be a killer trip if it didn't start off rocky, right? 

But in all honesty, it hasn't been that bad of a trip. The flights have passed relatively quickly, but MAN does one event trigger a butterfly effect on traveling. 

My flight to San Diego to Newark was pretty uneventful. They said that I needed to get my boarding pass in Newark... no biggie. I had a two-hour layer, which seemed sufficient enough. 

When I got to Newark, I walked over to the TAP Portugal ticketing area. It looked like there were about 25 people in the line... uh oh, but whatever. I stood at the end of the line - then one of the TAP employees asked me if I was waiting for TAP Portugal - and when I said I was - she pointed me outside the door. Good god. 

There had to been over 50 or 60 people in line for TAP Portugal. I was worried I was going to miss my flight, but the TAP employee told me most of these people were in the same flight, and they would most likely delay the flight. 

Turns out their systems went down, so everything was being done by hand. That must have sucked hard for the agents. Anyways, I got my boarding pass and got to the gate around 630 (flight was at 6pm). We ended up leaving the ground around 730. 

I was kind of stressing my Lisbon to Marrakech part (they again didn't issue me a boarding pass) - I had two hours between those two flights and we were running an hour and a half late. 

As it turns out, we landed one hour before my flight, so I rushed it over to the Marrakesh gate. Odd, there were only like 2 other people there. 

The lady at the gate politely informed me that since the Newark flight was running late, TAP had rebooked me on another airline's flight to Marrakesh - this would be with Royal Air Maroc through Casablanca at 4pm. I figured, "Well, at least I can check out Lisbon, today." The lady told me to head downstairs to the transfers desk, where they would help me out. 

When I go to the transfers desk, they told me I had to leave the secure area and go to the Royal Air Maroc ticket kiosk to get my boarding pass. So I went through immigration control and headed out into the general area. But there was no Royal Air Maroc kiosk that I could find. 

So I head over to the information desk. The super cool chick informs me that cause they run a smaller airline, they don't have people there all day. She then tells me to head back over to TAP and see if they can book me on the Casablanca flight at noon. She points me to customer service. Off I go again. 

I get THERE, and the agent rushedly tells me that they actually booked me back on the original flight (it's about 820am at this point) because the flight was delayed. She gives me a priority boarding pass and tells me to hurry over. So off I go through security, passport control (where the guy gives me a quizzical look and informs me that the departure time for this flight was over half an hour hour ago), and I run over to the gate. It's empty again. 

The agent (who was there originally), remarks, "Oh, they ended up booking you on this flight?" 

Yes, they did. And as it turns out: this flight is delayed indefinitely. 

Honestly, though... not really bothering me. I'm hungry, tired, and I have a slight headache. But right now, all I want to do is get my ass to Marrakesh and take a nap. I've been up for 27 hours at this point - by the time I get to the riad in Marrakesh, it will have been 24 hours end to end. 

My real worry right now is my luggage - TAP hasn't inspired me with great confidence thus far. Well, we'll find out in a few hours!