EDIT: before I begin, I’m writing this to say that this entry is quite long and quite rant-like. Read at your own peril (boredom).

You know those times in life when you think everything is working against you? Well, last night was one of those times.

After trekking out to Newark in a blizzard on a shuttle bus with a huge suitcase and a twisted ankle, I was pleasantly surprised at seeing that out of all the flights from Newark, mine was one of three or four that was actually ON TIME,  all lit up in bright green, adamant letters, next to the red CANCELED signs framing every other flight.

These other flights were at all different times of the day and even those late at night had been canceled early in the morning. But of course, this didn’t seem weird to us. Okay, maybe a little weird. We (Albina, Ioana and I) saw the massive line for “Reaccommodation Services” and giggled, at how our flight was so badass that it was at 6pm and still going to fly out. I mean, never mind the fact that we couldn’t see the planes 20 feet away from the window, and that there was a state of emergency being declared….those are just small details. If Continental says that we’re flying, we’re flying.

After waiting in the airport for 4 hours (and during these 4 hours, we were staring out the gigantic windows airports so generously provide at the worsening storm. They really need curtains for times like these), we were (at our disbelief) boarded onto the plane. This is where we (or more specifically me and Albina) started praying a bit. We were trying to be calm, and trying to un-see all the metaphors for death that seemed to pop up in everything from a chicken caesar wrap to expressions of exhaustion.

Once we’re all buckled in, the pilot (who we analyzed prior to the flight and came to the conclusion that he looked inexperienced and yet capable, confident but still cursing his luck a little bit) made the announcement that we would have to de-ice the plane for 45 minutes to 1.5 hours (….if that much de-icing is necessary, maybe we should reconsider the flight…) and then take off. So at this point, we’ve gone past the point of being (too) scared and I sent out my byebye texts and called my mom, telling her that the flight has not been canceled and we’re actually taking off. My mom, always full of surprises, said “Isn’t this exciting?!” whereas i expected her to tell me to get off that plane right that moment. Which I may or may not have wanted her to say.

Finally, they came to their senses and deplaned us, canceling the flight and leaving us to try to reschedule a new flight from the leftovers of all those people who’d been rescheduling all day before us. And the cherry on the top was that we got an incompetent nincompoop (I only use this word when I really mean it) of an agent, who spent more time laughing at a bad joke about hamburgers made by a colleague than looking for alternative flights for us. After 30 minutes of trying to call up other airlines to see if we could get a flight to Cairo from anywhere in Europe, we returned to the counter, finally attended to by someone who quite clearly wanted to get us a flight. In about 5 minutes, she gave us three confirmed tickets for the 29th (not the best thing but better than nothing by far).

Yay! Ordeal over, right? JUST KIDDING, that would make life way too bearable! After 7 hours of being in the airport, Continental decided that it wouldn’t be able to find Ioana’s suitcase…even though the plane didn’t even take off so there’s really nowhere it could have gone. After arguing with them many times, and 3.5 hours later, they *magically* found Ioana’s suitcase (it must have gone on a walk, you see). This, unfortunately, was about 30 minutes after Albina’s dad came and picked her up or we could have just gone with them. But anyway, the suitcase had been returned!

So hooray! We could go home now! JUST KIDDING, all the shuttles/air train back to NYC had completely shut down because the blizzard had gotten out of control! That’s okay, we could just take a cab….JUST KIDDING, cab companies said they were booked till Tuesday Morning (this was Sunday night)….Our only other alternative was the seedy man in a black coat and shifty eyes who said he needed two more people for his van to NYC and he was only charging a nice rate of $80 per person! This added to the fact that I was 80% sure he was going to sell us into prostitution, and our decision to spend the night in heatless, seatless and unhelpful Newark Airport was made.

To sum up the rest of this saga, we got home at 2pm on Monday. That’s only because my uncle drove out and picked us up (New favorite uncle? I think so).

Moral of the story: If there’s a blizzard, don’t go to the airport. If you go to the airport, expect to be there for 384304838 hours. If you’re there for 343043843 hours, bring food and warm clothing.

I am kind of glad the plane didn’t take off though, because who knows what would have happened. There’s a saying in Hindi Jaan Bachi To Lakhon Paaye. “Life saved, Gained Millions” (everything beautiful about this was killed in translation. R.I.P) basically meaning that as long as you have your life, you’ve gained a lot more (and not lost anything…besides two days in Cairo :'( )