Doomed Trip of Doom

I think the bureaucratic difficulty I've had getting to today (I depart for Freetown tonight) indicates that this trip is completely doomed. I've been trying to get to this point since November; even so, that didn't prevent me spending most of my day yesterday babysitting my travel authorization and making a total pest of myself to the people who needed to clear on it. And, when my ticket was finally issued at 6:00PM, they took away my business class on my return flight (due to new regulations). Funny thing is, I'm the "team leader" and the rest of my team, who already had their tickets, are all in business class. Sigh. I'm on a waiting list for an upgrade using my miles for the last half of the return--but I'm not hopeful. So, since this trip already has doom written all over it, I'm going to make some predictions:

1. My flight out of Dulles will be delayed due to weather.
2. This will cause me to miss my connection in London. The other two people traveling with me will expect me (as team leader) to fix everything.
3. We will arrive in Freetown 12 hours later than expected.
4. Our luggage will not arrive with us.
5. Because of our late arrival, we won't stay in the airport hotel and will have to sleep sitting up in chairs in an un-air conditioned terminal.
6. The ferry taking us from the airport to Freetown will sink, but I will manage to swim to shore. One of my teammates will be eaten by a shark.
7. My luggage will arrive in Freetown 3 days later. When it does, all my underwear will have been stolen & someone will have used my toothbrush.
8. The contractor's sampling vials containing various acids will never make it into the country. But it won't matter, because the contractor was the one eaten by the shark.
9. My hotel room will be full of mosquitoes.
10. I will get food poisoning within the first 12 hours and spend the rest of the trip hugging the toilet and hanging out with the mosquitoes in my hotel room.
11. On the return to the airport, we will take the helicopter because the ferry sank. The helicopter will crash; I will miraculously survive unscathed, but my luggage will be incinerated.
12. My flight out of Freetown will be canceled, and I will have to wait in Lungi for 2 days.
13. When I finally make my connection somewhere in Europe, I will not get upgraded to business class, due in part to my looking like a vagrant after surviving a helicopter crash and wearing the same clothes for 3 days (and the same underwear for 7).
14. I will arrive home approximately 2 weeks after my original return date after making connections through Frankfurt, Oslo, Dushanbe, Sao Paulo, Chicago, and Atlanta.

The only thing that makes me feel better is that in buying some new music this morning for my trip, I discovered that DRM-free Justin Timberlake is now available on Amazon.com--Oh, happy day (Yes, I like Justin Timberlake. I'm aware that's not cool)!

Oh, and my Ankara pictures are here. I probably won't do a write up, since I generally don't if I take another trip before writing about the first one. Synopsis: It was really cold. I saw Ataturk's mausoleum. Turkish food seems to involve a lot of butter and sour cream. The Turkish word for "thank you" is 6 syllables.