joyeux noel!

So, the trip to visit believeitup is not going as well as it should've been, but I'm still trying to stay positive.

It started out with the single and only flight out of St. John's that was cancelled this morning being my flight, of course, which was one to Toronto, where I had a 5+ hour wait until my connecting flight to Philadelphia. I arrived around 5:10am and the flight was scheduled for 6:55am, and sadly I'd just missed another that was leaving at 5:15am. Luckily, however, or so I thought, they came up with another solution: put me on a plane that was scheduled to leave ~6:20am for Montreal where I could easily connect to Toronto (they fly every hour on the hour from there to TO) and then I'd easily make my connection.

Sadly, the 6:20am flight didn't leave until closer to 8am NL time. The plane was right there on the run way, waiting to be taxied over to the terminal so we could actually board it, but for some damn reason they couldn't do it. There were even an announcement saying they'd tow it over and boarding would then start in 10 minutes, but then it was about an hour before we actually could board. I wasn't too concerned then, as with the 1.5 hour time difference in my favour and what I thought was a short flight I'd be ok. And heck, they even put me in Executive, which is Air Canada talk for First Class, so I got a big seat, lots of leg room, choice of fresh fruit or smoked salmon for a meal, warm towels, etc., very swanky. Only thing was, I figured it was like maybe 2 hours tops to Montreal, but it was closer to 3. Plus, when we landed, we were stuck on the damn plane for 30 freakin' minutes for some reason, again a dumb delay, and our 9:30am EST scheduled time (late for my 9am connection but certainly fine for a 10am next one) went out the window. I was literally the first off the plane and went to the 10am gate to see the last people getting on and was told that, sorry, no room in the inn.

So they sent us to Customer Service, where, haha, NO ONE WAS WORKING. I'm serious, 10:10am in a busy airport on one of the busiest days of the year and not a soul at the Customer Service desk. Inexcusable. Myself and other passengers waited for ~45 damn minutes before anyone showed, knowing that not only was the 10am one gone but 11am was too (and so were any and all chances of making my flight to Philly), and then wehn someone showed up they said, no, we had to go elsewhere. askdpowqkdpokwad;lasdk RAGE.

They sent us downstairs somewhere, which are horrible, horrible directions to give to someone who's never spent much time in the Duval airport, especially at this time of year. Ugh. Myself and my fellow pack of exiled passengers from St. John's go to one line, find out it's wrong, then to another, find out that's wrong, then finally get in the right one, where we proceeded to wait over four hours to talk to someone. I just... I am hard to anger or annoy, but omg. So angry and furious today.

Luckily, the people who made up the informal group were awesome. There was a guy named Nick who is from Alberta originally but works in Gander, who was heading home for Christmas. He was funny and nice and at one point left the line and brought back like 6 bottles of water for us, since we were all thirsty and in line, heh. There was a lady and her son, and she kinda reminded me of Carla from Scrubs, and she was a nurse too. XD Very nice though, and her son, ~12 or so I guess, was funny. There were another guy and girl who both gave up, the girl taking a train to TO and the guy swapping to WestJet for another flight, annnnnd there was a quiet girl from PEI who looked a little like believeitup (which made me miss her more ♥) and a guy from NB, who wasn't actually from our flight but came to the airport to buy a ticket home. The place we had to go for rebookings was also where you buy tickets.

Anyway, after all that hassle, the guy I got to speak to was really nice and understanding. Without me even asking, they set me up with a free hotel room, a $10 airport voucher for lunch (grabbed some Burger King before I left, mmm), $15 for supper, and $7 for breakfast. There's a free shuttle that runs to and from the hotel too so it hasn't been that bad of an experience, the lack of Sara aside of course.

I went for a walk for about 90 mins. too, which was nice. Not much to see, as it's all commercial and office type buildings / hotels around here, but the fresh air did me good I think, especially after either being cramped up in an airplane or standing in line all day long. Since then I've had pizza for supper (a Quebecois one, which is bacon, onions, and mozzerella cheese, plus I added pepperoni and ground beef), watched some hockey, chatted with mah babeh while the internet worked, and then clued it up with a nice, long phone call once my internet shut down. It's back up now, hopefully long enough for me to finish and post this at least.

So, yes. Montreal. I'm currently confirmed on a flight to Toronto at 10am tomorrow and then from Toronto to Philadelphia at 5:45pm tomorrow afternoon. There's supposed to be snow tomorrow in Toronto so the extra early departure time (in respect to the Philly connection that is) is to allow for delays and whatnot. There was another direct to Philly from here, but it's later in the day than the Toronto part and it's with an American company that says it'd have to be on stand by, so even though it's a later arrival than I'd like, at least I'm confirmed for it. Here's hoping all goes well, and I'l update everyone when I get another chance. Hopefully from Sara and Tanya's apartment tomorrow night, hehe! :D

joyeux noel!

So, the trip to visit believeitup is not going as well as it should've been, but I'm still trying to stay positive.

It started out with the single and only flight out of St. John's that was cancelled this morning being my flight, of course, which was one to Toronto, where I had a 5+ hour wait until my connecting flight to Philadelphia. I arrived around 5:10am and the flight was scheduled for 6:55am, and sadly I'd just missed another that was leaving at 5:15am. Luckily, however, or so I thought, they came up with another solution: put me on a plane that was scheduled to leave ~6:20am for Montreal where I could easily connect to Toronto (they fly every hour on the hour from there to TO) and then I'd easily make my connection.

Sadly, the 6:20am flight didn't leave until closer to 8am NL time. The plane was right there on the run way, waiting to be taxied over to the terminal so we could actually board it, but for some damn reason they couldn't do it. There were even an announcement saying they'd tow it over and boarding would then start in 10 minutes, but then it was about an hour before we actually could board. I wasn't too concerned then, as with the 1.5 hour time difference in my favour and what I thought was a short flight I'd be ok. And heck, they even put me in Executive, which is Air Canada talk for First Class, so I got a big seat, lots of leg room, choice of fresh fruit or smoked salmon for a meal, warm towels, etc., very swanky. Only thing was, I figured it was like maybe 2 hours tops to Montreal, but it was closer to 3. Plus, when we landed, we were stuck on the damn plane for 30 freakin' minutes for some reason, again a dumb delay, and our 9:30am EST scheduled time (late for my 9am connection but certainly fine for a 10am next one) went out the window. I was literally the first off the plane and went to the 10am gate to see the last people getting on and was told that, sorry, no room in the inn.

So they sent us to Customer Service, where, haha, NO ONE WAS WORKING. I'm serious, 10:10am in a busy airport on one of the busiest days of the year and not a soul at the Customer Service desk. Inexcusable. Myself and other passengers waited for ~45 damn minutes before anyone showed, knowing that not only was the 10am one gone but 11am was too (and so were any and all chances of making my flight to Philly), and then wehn someone showed up they said, no, we had to go elsewhere. askdpowqkdpokwad;lasdk RAGE.

They sent us downstairs somewhere, which are horrible, horrible directions to give to someone who's never spent much time in the Duval airport, especially at this time of year. Ugh. Myself and my fellow pack of exiled passengers from St. John's go to one line, find out it's wrong, then to another, find out that's wrong, then finally get in the right one, where we proceeded to wait over four hours to talk to someone. I just... I am hard to anger or annoy, but omg. So angry and furious today.

Luckily, the people who made up the informal group were awesome. There was a guy named Nick who is from Alberta originally but works in Gander, who was heading home for Christmas. He was funny and nice and at one point left the line and brought back like 6 bottles of water for us, since we were all thirsty and in line, heh. There was a lady and her son, and she kinda reminded me of Carla from Scrubs, and she was a nurse too. XD Very nice though, and her son, ~12 or so I guess, was funny. There were another guy and girl who both gave up, the girl taking a train to TO and the guy swapping to WestJet for another flight, annnnnd there was a quiet girl from PEI who looked a little like believeitup (which made me miss her more ♥) and a guy from NB, who wasn't actually from our flight but came to the airport to buy a ticket home. The place we had to go for rebookings was also where you buy tickets.

Anyway, after all that hassle, the guy I got to speak to was really nice and understanding. Without me even asking, they set me up with a free hotel room, a $10 airport voucher for lunch (grabbed some Burger King before I left, mmm), $15 for supper, and $7 for breakfast. There's a free shuttle that runs to and from the hotel too so it hasn't been that bad of an experience, the lack of Sara aside of course.

I went for a walk for about 90 mins. too, which was nice. Not much to see, as it's all commercial and office type buildings / hotels around here, but the fresh air did me good I think, especially after either being cramped up in an airplane or standing in line all day long. Since then I've had pizza for supper (a Quebecois one, which is bacon, onions, and mozzerella cheese, plus I added pepperoni and ground beef), watched some hockey, chatted with mah babeh while the internet worked, and then clued it up with a nice, long phone call once my internet shut down. It's back up now, hopefully long enough for me to finish and post this at least.

So, yes. Montreal. I'm currently confirmed on a flight to Toronto at 10am tomorrow and then from Toronto to Philadelphia at 5:45pm tomorrow afternoon. There's supposed to be snow tomorrow in Toronto so the extra early departure time (in respect to the Philly connection that is) is to allow for delays and whatnot. There was another direct to Philly from here, but it's later in the day than the Toronto part and it's with an American company that says it'd have to be on stand by, so even though it's a later arrival than I'd like, at least I'm confirmed for it. Here's hoping all goes well, and I'l update everyone when I get another chance. Hopefully from Sara and Tanya's apartment tomorrow night, hehe! :D