However, sometimes God has other things in mind. We were sitting there all proud of ourselves waiting to board when we hear an announcement that our plane had been having mechanical issues and boarding was going to be delayed. About 10 minutes later we get another announcement: Our flight has been cancelled and we will all be put on another flight the next morning at 6:00 a.m.!!! This has never happened to either of us before. Mark was sort of standing there in shock and I just yelled, "Get in line!" They were handing out hotel and meal vouchers and our entire flight was crowding around us trying to get to the front. Luckily because of where we were sitting when they made the announcement, practically already in a line towards the front, we only had to wait for AN HOUR to get our vouchers. We were near the front of the line. That line went out the terminal and around the corner so those people were waiting at least two hours, maybe three. Mind you, this was for a 7 p.m. flight so some of those people didn't get their vouchers until 10 p.m. and they were telling us to be back at the airport by 4 a.m. because of how crazy it was going to be tomorrow!! You might as well just sleep there!
We laughed about it but overheard people panicking needing to catch their connected flights and one girl who was all by herself and had no money or phone who was just there on a layover from somewhere else. She was freaking out quite a bit too. We both felt lucky we had each other and could look at this as a fun adventure instead of a huge inconvenience and lonely misfortune.
We used both our breakfast and dinner vouchers (we didn't think we would be getting breakfast at 3:30 in the morning) for dinner and it's a good thing because let me tell you, airport food is expensive!!! We went to Ruby's Diner...more like a cheap expensive imitation. The cheeseburgers were $11 and unlike the real Ruby's did not come with unlimited fries. The shakes were $7 (okay no one told us we had to get a shake but it's RUBY's!!!) and didn't even come with the rest of the shake in the silver cup!! We got one to share but it was delicious so we would have appreciated the extra amount.
After dinner we hurried outside to catch our hotel shuttle. The hurrying was extremely unnecessary. We ended up waiting an hour and a half for a shuttle to take us to the hotel a mile away!!! One shuttle got there after 30 minutes but it was full and we didn't see another one until an hour later. Meanwhile, shuttles for all the other hotels were coming by every 10-15 minutes! Of course, the busiest hotel that's hosting an entire cancelled flight would have no shuttles. We actually reasoned that because they had so many people to take, they were probably filling up before they got to us but we never saw any other full ones go by so I'm skeptical of that theory. Either way, it was really unfortunate since we had to be up so early.
We got to the hotel at 10 p.m. and it was such a nice hotel! It's a shame we didn't have much time to enjoy it. We got 4 hours of sleep and got up at 3:40 to head back to the chaos. We I was a little worried that we would have the same shuttle problem getting back to the airport but luckily 4 a.m. is a very busy time for them and they had plenty of shuttles for us. Go figure. We got to our gate plenty early and just tried to relax. Oh but this time we had to go through real security and disrobe. Annoying.
I probably sound like I'm complaining...we really weren't annoyed, it was just funny how many things went wrong. Normally, that type of thing would seriously annoy me and make me angry but being with Mark made the whole thing okay. It was even kind of fun and I just laughed a little to myself as each event got progressively worse. Mark has a way of calming me down. When we were waiting an hour and a half for the shuttle at the crazy airport, I looked around and saw other people waiting that just looked cold, tired, and miserable. I was safe in Mark's arms and would nuzzle my nose underneath his neck and just feel his warmth. It didn't matter where we were or what was happening around us. I was safe.
The whole situation actually made me think of Titanic (favorite movie so I think of it A LOT). The mad dash to get the vouchers with the elite "first class" going first and everyone else just trying to get a spot in line...the full shuttle "life boat" that passed us by and just couldn't make room for us...and then when we finally did get a shuttle, we passed by other people who had been waiting...we heard them begging to squeeze on and at first our bus driver said no but then she finally squeezed their luggage behind her seat and let a woman and her child on and I turned to Mark and said, "Women and children, first please, women and children!" He thought I was a little ridiculous but come on, it was a Titanic sort of situation!! I was Rose and felt so lucky to have my Jack with me, keeping me safe. Don't worry...Mark does not die at the end of this story.
So after all of that we finally got on our flight at 6 a.m. and it was awesome!!! The plane was an International one and so the seats were really comfy and spacious and we all had TV's right in front of us and we had 265 movies to choose from!!! There were so many good ones that Mark and I couldn't decide. We went through them all and made lists of the ones we were interested in seeing and then compared. We ended up watching "The Way, Way Back" and "Turbo", both excellent movies! I recommend them!!
That was just this morning but it feels like we've already been here a few days, haha. It's been a long day. We are glad to be home though and excited for a fun week ahead! I will try and keep you posted on our future adventures :) Maybe I will get Mark to post a few too!
