A Series of Unfortunate Airport Events

This weekend I packed up my bags and boarded a plane to the beautiful city of Montreal. Ironically enough, one of my friends was on the same plane as me! My flight took a stop in Toronto first, then headed to Montreal, and it seemed as though I brought the snow everywhere I went. When I left Vancouver, it was snowing; when I arrived in Toronto, it was snowing; and only a couple hours after I landed in Montreal (yup, you guessed it), it started snowing! I wouldn't have minded the weather as much if only I brought some boots. But no, I wasn't that lucky!

The trip, altogether, was amazing though. I stayed with my friend in her dorm at McGill University; even now I still fail to understand how anyone gets any work done around there! The constant music-blasting and yelling people make it nearly impossible to concentrate. On the other hand, I guess everyone is pretty much used to it by now. My friend was an awesome tour guide; she had every minute of everyday planned out. We did a little shopping, a little movie-watching, a little clubbing and a LOT of eating! She took me to Indian, Thai, and Mexican restaurants -all of which were incredible. I met some pretty amazing people at her residence, too. One guy there was a phenomenal basketball player, one girl was a crazy dancer, and another girl sung and played the guitar beautifully. All of this talent had me so inspired! It also reminded me of my aspirations to play the guitar, and now I'm thinking about taking guitar lessons!

Eventually, like all trips, it had to come to an end. However, I was very appreciative of the fact that we did so much during such a short trip. But I think saying goodbye was probably the hardest part. It's not easy when a close friend moves away and you don't get to see them as much, not to mention I was addicted to such an amazing city! So I squished everything into my suitcase and caught a cab to the airport. This, my friends, is where the fun begins.

As soon as I got the the Montreal Trudeau Airport, I knew there was going to be trouble. The snowstorm that came a few days prior had all the flights out of Montreal delayed. The fact that I went standby didn't help either. I went to the gate of the flight I was supposed to catch and realized the excessive bombardment of people waiting to get on. So, I asked the attendant at the gate if there was any chance of me getting on, and she told me that the flight was completely booked. I got re-listed on the next flight out which was a half hour wait. Again, I went up to the counter and asked an airline employee whether I would have any chance at all of making the flight. He told me "there are 100 people waiting to get on and you're near the bottom of the list. And if you don't make it on tonight, you have no chance making it tomorrow morning, either. Those flights look even worse. But you could always stick around and see what happens." GREAT.

Shortly after he announced that the plane was boarding, he began calling names to assign seats. After calling a long list of at least 50 names, he gave up. "Okay, let's just make this easier for everyone," he said. "How many of you are there?" He did a head count of 6 and gave us each seats on the last flight of the night. I couldn't believe it.

You'd think this would be the end, but no. Unfortunately, this flight only stopped in Toronto, and the next flight out to Vancouver from there left at 7 the next morning. I landed in Toronto at around 11:30 pm and began making calls to figure out what I should do from there (my phone bill is going to be a heavy one this month!). I decided it would be best to throw an all nighter at the airport rather than get picked up by my cousin who lived only a half hour away. First off, it would have been a major inconvenience. Second, by the time I got picked up, went to his house, slept, woke up, got ready, and drove back to the airport, it wouldn't have been worth it. So I decided to join the rest of the slumbering passengers in the 24-hour area.

The next morning, I waited to get called to board the 7 o'clock flight but, surprise-surprise, I didn't make it on. Once again, I got re-listed and made it onto the next flight that headed out at 8:30 am. Finally, I was on my way home!

If there's two things I've learned from this entire experience, they would have to be:

1) People can do amazing things if they follow their dreams; wasted talent never got anyone anywhere.

2) Persistence DOES work! If I hadn't stuck around, I would still be in Montreal and probably wouldn't have made it home until Friday. (Although, that wouldn't have been all that bad!)

P.S. If you haven't been to Montreal, I strongly urge you to check it out one day!