Traveling to Peru

Heading to New York

Since we knew a Nor’easter was coming into New England the day of our flight, we made sure that we left bright and early Sunday morning at 7:00am.  A three hour drive and we were in Long Island, New York at Charlotte’s grams house just waiting for the weather to hit. As it did, it just kept getting worst and worst. We made sure to keep an eye on the airport to see what flights were being cancelled and let me tell you the majority of them all day were cancelled. While we waited to see if our flight would be cancelled as well, we played Quiddler a new game that we thought we would try out and we also unsuccessfully tried to do our writing assignments for the trip.  The weather didn’t seem to be letting up any but our flight was still on, so at 7:00pm we forged our way through the snow to get to the airport.

Trekking to the airport

Since there were NO taxis running at this time due to the weather, Holly (Charlotte’s mom) took it on herself to try to get us to the airport. With over 6inches of snow on the ground in the parking lot, let’s just say it wasn’t an easy feat. After shoveling and having Holly (A.K.A Superwoman) literally pushing the car, we finally got out of the parking lot of Charlotte’s gram’s condo.  The roads around the condo weren’t much better but with another few pushes and gram at the wheel we were able to get the car to a main road. Even though the road conditions weren’t all that great still we were able to have all four of us in the car. At a speed of about 20mph we trekked our way to the airport. Obviously there were your common “assholes” driving on the road as well in their 4-wheel drive SUV’s (which by the way we were in a Honda Accord) and there were also those overly cautious people who seemed to think hitting their breaks going up a hill was going to help them somehow but in reality just made it harder to get up the incline. Through all of this SOMEHOW we made it to the airport. As Charlotte and I climbed out of the car we were almost toppled over by the wind and in a twenty foot span I think I almost fell five times because of the snow and ice on the ground. I just kept thinking “How the hell is a plane going to take off in this?”

Finding our way

As Charlotte and I slipped and slid our way into the airport we found ourselves somewhere quite deserted. Where there are usually long lines waiting to be checked in, there was nobody because everyone else’s flight had been cancelled… WEIRD?! So as we made our way through, no one, we checked in our bags and then went to security. Security went over well and easy, except for the awful smell of rotten feet (seriously, it was disgusting).  As we put our stuff back in our bags we just started to laugh, thinking how ridiculous this looked and I just kept saying how surreal life seemed to be at this moment. We had spent so long waiting for this trip and now we were just waiting to see if our flight was even going to happen. The waiting kept building up my anxiety throughout the past few months and the waiting today just made it even worst.

Luckily we found someone else that was also going on our trip and we knew that there were a few more that would be around.  It was nice just having another person to be around and understand what all of us were going through.  As we waited we watched out the window wondering how in the world a plane was going to go out of this. The wind was pushing snow around like crazy, a literal blizzard atmosphere but they said it was still on. After awhile we started to hear different announcements about the airport and other flights and we thought we had heard one saying that the airport had CLOSED. But the board still had our flight on schedule so we waited some more. Finally we heard the devastating yet OBVIOUS news, our flight would be postponed until 9:00am, why they couldn’t tell us this about 10 hours ago, I don’t know but whatever. So we found the other people that were going to be on our trip and we decided we were going to wait it out at the airport with Holly’s words in the back of our minds “If we get you there and it’s cancelled, you guys are staying put!” and that’s exactly what we planned to do.

Staked out in the airport

When we found out our plane was delayed until the morning the airport attendees had us come get food vouchers from them so we could get something to eat. Funny thing is, they gave us about 20 minutes to buy food and the lines were FOREVER long. We waited and the places stayed open, thankfully but it was obnoxious. As I stood there I just felt myself breaking down. Now for those of you who know me I’ve had a rough past month with emotions and I have to say I was at my breaking point. I called my family and my dad talked me through it and got me to calm down and look at the bigger picture (he is really good at this stuff). I am also quite lucky to have a boyfriend that knows how to deal with my anxiety too and I have to say he really does know how to handle it and calm me down. Between these great two guys in my life I was able to relax a bit and reflect on everything that was going on.  I can’t say I remember when my anxiety started over this trip but between this and everything else going on right now I am just looking for normality again. Luckily I was able to get myself out of the anxiety and perk up a bit, just in time to realize that we would be sleeping on the floor for the night, woohoo! NOT. At least there was 4 of us staying together now and we were able to get a blanket for underneath us.  We all just kind of relaxed and eventually fell asleep for a few hours at a time at least for me. It was not easy to sleep on a tile floor I’ll tell you that much especially with so many people around that I did not know. Plus on top of this at about 3:00am I woke up to some random man screaming about something or other, I don’t know but I realized I was absolutely freezing so Charlotte and I got her sleeping bag out and snuggled under it to get through the rest of the night. The rest of the night included about 3 more hours of sleep because we were all up at about 6:00am, fun stuff. Thinking that our plane was going to be jetting off at around 9:00am we started to get more and more excited.

Then we got more news about our plane and once again we had a delay, this time INDEFINITELY. Cool just wicked awesome at this point. My back feels like it’s broken, I haven’t showered since Saturday night (I know, gross but I was expecting to be in Peru by now), I don’t have my toothbrush, I don’t have any other clothes, my laptop only has so much battery and there are only two outlets in this whole damn room. To say the least, my patience isn’t exactly there anymore. Oh and to top it all off, after we got our morning vouchers to get breakfast I walked upstairs and almost blacked out for a good half an hour, that was fun.  I don’t know if it was from the lack of sleep, fresh air, water, or what but I was not feeling well. Finally we got back downstairs and I was able to sit down for awhile and start feeling better. Thankfully I felt better, because that was about all I could take. I called my parents and let them know that once again we would be delayed and hopefully would be flying out tonight. And at this point that’s all I’m waiting for. There isn’t really much to do in here except sleep, eat, play games, and read so I’m doing whatever I can to pass the time. Luckily there are five us all together now and I have to say, it’s definitely been a bonding experience. These girls are great and I can’t wait to spend the next three weeks with them, I’m just hoping that we can get to Peru and start our real adventure. But as my mom said “it’s always an adventure with you and Charlotte isn’t it?” and that’s the truth-I just wish we could go back to having a suite in Cancun because our ceiling flooded instead of being stuck in an airport but I’ll take what I can get. We have met a lot of interesting people and I’m sure we will meet plenty more!