In my short life, I've been blessed with uncanny luck regarding flying. Everyone, especially in the sibling pool, seems to have really (like, really) awful stories about flying. There was that time with Anne with the guy and the heart attack and the subway in New York or something. Or that time with Dad just recently with the million reroutes and delays until like a day later he got back to Boston at 4 am and got to drive the rest of the way back up to Calais. Everyone has these crazy bad stories!
And I still don't.
But I dooooo now have a good and proper flight cancellation, so allow me to describe it in excruciatingly boring detail. The closest I've come, really, to nuisance, was that once I got off a flight and my connection was canceled, and they pointed me to a gate 20 feet away, where I boarded after an hour. Haha, yeah. So today, I got to the airport wicked early. Like, 4 hours early. It was either be four hours early, or 45 minutes early, since I was taking the bus down, and I prefer to be on the safe side. So after bumming around the airport for four hours, I find out that the first leg of my trip is grounded in Boston because of a storm (pft), and will be two hours late, at least. That sort of sucked, since I had a 45 minuteish layover to work with. So I was like, le suck, and even more so when they told me that was the last flight from Boston to Columbus, so if I didn't make it, I would stay at a hotel, which they wouldn't pay for, because it was cancellation due to weather.
I really didn't want to pay for my room, since all the hotels (I love you, Google maps) seemed to be $159-$169. On the plane, I sat behind a girl I know from StFX, but whose name I can't for the life of me remember (she's very nice), and sat beside a law student from Dal, who was lots of fun to talk to. And miraculously, in the end, my flight got in only a little bit late, and my connection was running two hours late. Yay! Happy ending! No.
While I was struggling to ignore the Academy Awards (I wonder if they paid the airport to have it on that channel) and instead read my incredibly boring book, the time for boarding kind of came and went. And eventually they told us that a fuel truck had, in fact, run into our plane. And the flight was cancelled.
So I was like, that's cool, I get my hotel room paid for now!! And the very nice woman with a heavy Boston accent gave me three meal vouchers to use instead of one. But when I went to get my luggage, alas, it was missing. It turns out they already checked it through to Columbus for tomorrow. How efficient of them. So I told them, don't worry about it, it seems easier this way.
The woman next to me on the shuttle was really angry (we were all from the same flight, of course), and when she telling me how angry she was (she was from Toledo), I told her that I didn't really mind. She said something along the lines of 'aw, how cute.' But the woman from Delta only gave her one meal voucher. I wonder whyyyy.
The group on the shuttle was a really amusing bunch. We didn't have one repeat personality. There was an almost albino-looking slavic-ish older woman, a stylish young Asian guy, the angry soccer mom from Toledo, and a 30s business type. And me.
Somehow....it never really occurred to me that Boston's on a waterfront. And has a harbor. When I think of Boston in history, of course it's on the water. But when I think of the modern Boston that I've had limited interaction with, it's a crowded city with an airport and hellish roads, and water never even occurred to me. View from the dining room:
In an attempt to feel better, I've used every free sample in the hotel room. Every inch of me has been scrubbed with soap and moisturized, and I took an extra long shower to enjoy not runing out of hot water. I turned the tv on, and enjoyed some ...dammit...Germaine and Brett...flock...humans are dead, hipphopopotamus and rhymenocerous...this will come to me. Anyways, I'd never actually seen an episode of their show before, so that was fun. Flight of the Concords!!! Yes! Whew.
Unfortunately, my camera is in my bag, or you guys would have been treated to some very interesting single serving photography. The toothbrush was going to be a particular work of art.
My apologies to Ben, who I wasn't able to get ahold of to let know what was happening. When I have a job, I've decided to give in and get a cell phone. Oh, the horror. The fun, gadgety horror.
