My Tapestry of Thoughts: Livin' in the Airport

I have flown many, many, many times before, never had too big of issues really other some delayed flights and barely making my next connection. This was by far the WORST experience ever! American Airlines is not my friend, however it was this airline that I barely made a connecting flight with. Just saying... I really shouldn't be the one complaining because I was one of the select few who were the least affected by everything. Our flight was to leave at 8:30am or so and so we were to all arrive at the airport between 6 and 6:30am to make sure we would make it through check-in and security in time. So we are all standing in line hoping to use the fast check-in monitors since none of us were checking any lugguge. However, the machines weren't working and we all seriously tried at least once some of us tried them twice but to no avail. Then we had to stand in line for the counter to get our tickets. They only had 2 people working at the counters and not only was our group of 50 there but a ton of LDS missionaries and a whole load of other people as well.

We seriously stood in line for at least an hour or more before a handful of us were finally able to get our tickets printed out. Then suddenly we were told to wait before going to security. At this point we realized we had only about an hour before our plane left and only 6-8 of us even had tickets printed and none had gone on through security. So we waited and then find out that our flight to Dallas, TX was delayed a couple hours. Which would then entail us to miss our flight from Dallas to Chicago and then Chicago to Dublin. Wonderful and brilliant Brother Waddell had to try and work out as much as possible what was going on. The airlines were not very forthcoming on what was happening and we first heard it was because of bad storms in TX then we also heard the door to the plane was broken. I still don't know what the exact truth was. Then it gets even better the flight is canceled! YUP! So here we are about 48 BYU-Idaho students sitting and waiting to make our flight to Chicago at least to catch our flight to Dublin.

To pass the time we all sat down in small groups and a whole bunch of us had deck of cards so we just played games and relaxed and patiently waited to see what was going to happen. The next thing we know is that American Airlines is finding other spots on planes that will get some of us directly to Chicago in time to catch our flight there. Two girls were on one plane and then about 6 of us were flying United to Chicago. Lucky for me I was in the group of six and weren't flying out till noon. So we finally went through security and went to our gate, bought some lunch and played some more cards to pass some more time.

Then not only was this frustrating as a whole group I had my own seperate problem to deal with. I had planned on meeting my dad at the Dallas airport because he was flying in on the same airline I was at the same time for work. So I had decided that a ton of the clothes that I was originally going to have Laura mail to me, that I'd just give dad them instead and save some money. My suitcase was literarlly shoved full and I had no room! Which meant I had no room for souvenirs at all! I was really upset because I didn't know what to do. So after our flight to Chicago... I started throwing out some clothes. Originally I was bringing with me to Europe a ton of clothes that I would throw out by the end or throughout the trip so instead I kept my good clothes and threw out some of my old clothes right then and there. I hated it because about half my suitcase was full of stuff I wouldn't need at all on the trip but I had nothing else I could do.

Okay now on to the rest of the day. When we got off our flight in Chicago, Brother Waddell was there waiting for us at our exit (he had a different flight) and we walked all the way through like two more terminals to our American Airline gate. He then filled us in on the update. Only about 18 of us had made it to Chicago and would be able to catch our flight to Dublin in time. There were 8 people that flew into JFK airport and would be staying the night in NYC and fly out the next day to Dublin and the rest of the group would be staying at a hotel in SLC and flying out the next day as well. Yeah it basically sucked! Hardly anyone would be there the first day in Ireland! Brother Waddell great man that he is worked as hard as he could to change some of schedule around so everything would work out and the others wouldn't miss out on anything too drastic. Then in Chicago our flight was delayed about 3 hours and again we passed the time playing cards.

It was a very long and stressful day for all our us. I'm sure the others both those in NYC and SLC were just as stressed and upset for not being able to get there on time. But I am just grateful that I was able to make it and even more grateful that everyone else still made it the following day and we were extremely happy to finally be reunited again to continue on with our pilgrimage. I know the Lord blessed us greatly by still enably our whole group to reach Dublin and decent times so that we all could enjoy the trip together. We don't know why it became such a mess in the beginning. But Brother Waddell told us, never has anything this drastic happened on this tour before, and we all truly believe that something worse could have happened as a result. It all happened for a reason and all I can say is that I am grateful that we were all safe and together again the following day. :D