I know we've all been stranded while traveling, but my least favorite thing is getting stranded where I don't know the language. On my way back from visiting Heather with Brook in China, my flight from Xi'an to Bejing was delayed because of bad weather and I missed my Bejing to Frankfurt connection. When I got to the airport in Bejing and went to the ticketing counter, I was directed to the Lufthansa office, where I waited and was told I would have to buy a new ticket from Bejing to Frankfurt. Oh, shit. I went back to the ticketing counter in a panic and begged to be put on the next day's flight. After some stern-faced discussion and asking several managers, they agreed to let me on the following day's flight with the caveat that they were only responsible for getting me to Frankfurt and not to my final destination, Amsterdam. They made me sign a statement in Chinese in a notebook (yeah, that's enforceable) that I understood they could not get me to Amsterdam. At that point I would sign anything to get to the western hemisphere. I briefly thought about taking a train across Asia...and then I looked at a map. The airline said they would pay for my hotel and dinner, and I was told to go with this guy (no airline uniform) outside to this van (unmarked) to go to this hotel for the night. OK, sounds great! When I got to hotel, I promptly walked into the glass door (so clean!) in my typical clumsy fashion. At dinnertime, the hotel restaurant was huge, but empty except for a few other tables and a large buffet (which wasn't part of my free dinner deal). The server brought me a small plate of noodles (or so it seemed) and then didn't come back, so I ran away back to my room in hopes of catching a Baywatch episode. Or something. I was worried the next day that they wouldn't let me on the flight since I didn't have a new ticket or anything in writing, but everything turned out OK and I was even able to get on a flight from Frankfurt to Amsterdam.