My Awesome Weekend Turned Near-Death Experience

Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little bit. My weekend was awesome, and it did end with a harrowing aviation experience, but I'm not sure we were actually at death's door at any given moment. It just felt like we were about to die. It's been three days now, and I'm finally ready to discuss the ordeal.

I traveled to New York City this weekend with my Scottish friend, Claire, and we met up with our Texan friend, Jenn. We flew into Newark (oh, hated Liberty International Airport) on Friday morning, caught a cab into New York from Newark once we discovered the train bridge into NY wasn't working and our $15 train tickets were useless, and then much shopping, gossiping, sightseeing, eating, and drinking ensued.

We saw In the Heights on Broadway, and I loved it! It was a great show, and Jenn scored us a few awesome seats. Go see it if you're in New York.

We also went to check out the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, and we watched the ice skaters down in the rink. Claire and I felt obligated to comment on their skating technique and also on the quality of the ice since we're now expert ice skaters thanks to about six Monday night skating lessons.

We were highly amused on Saturday to learn that St. John's was expecting an impressive amount of snow during the day on Sunday. The idea of our Sunday evening flight being canceled and our husbands scrambling on Monday morning to deal with getting kids to school without us provided much entertainment throughout the day both Saturday and Sunday.

On Sunday the snow started piling up in St. John's, and Claire and I kept waiting for our flight to be cancelled. I emailed Shaun. John (Claire's husband) texted Claire. Shaun called me. Claire called John. Instructions were given on the subjects of packed lunches, carpool arrangements, and uniforms. Still waiting for our 6 PM flight to be cancelled, we all boarded a train to Newark Liberty International, said good-bye to Jenn, and prepared for a long night in Newark.

Never in a million years did we think our flight would not only depart for St. John's but that it would depart on time for St. John's. I've never been on an airplane that didn't spend at least two hours on the runway in Newark before taking off. We were actually going to fly into the snowstorm and attempt landing in 100+ kilometer per hour winds? Seriously? Oh, no, we weren't going to land in that kind of wind. We were just going to fly three hours to St. John's and hope that the wind had died down by the time we arrived.

Now, readers, just guess what happened next. Did the wind die down enough for the St. John's airport to open a runway? No. Did we circle for thirty minutes in hope of the wind dying down? Yes. Were we then forced to divert to Halifax an hour and a half away? Yes.

We landed in Halifax and Claire and I thought to ourselves, "Oh well. At least we're on the ground. Now maybe they'll let us off this plane, check us into hotels, and fly us to St. John's in the morning." But guess what happens when an international flight is forced to land somewhere other than at the airport it was originally scheduled to land at. It creates a customs and immigration nightmare, and therefore no one is allowed to actually disembark from the aircraft. Upon landing in Halifax we were told that we would be sitting on the runway in our tiny little airplane (in our very special last-row seats which did not recline and were located right next to the toilet) until a decision was made to either return to Newark (NO!! Please, not Newark!!) or attempt flying into St. John's again (in a windstorm certain to knock our little Embraer out of the sky). Seriously? When they could have just canceled this flight hours earlier and we could have been snoozing in a hotel in Newark at that very moment?

The airline proceeded to spend the next three hours making this decision. When the pilot finally announced that we were going to try landing in St. John's again he also threw in a little, "Fingers crossed, everyone!" Yeah. That's what I wanted to hear. Whatever. At that point I was willing for the airplane to smack right into the side of Signal Hill if it meant I could get out!

An hour and a half later, we were approaching St. John's, descending through the clouds, our little airplane was being bounced up and down and around in the sky, and Claire turned to me and said, "I think there's still snow on the runway." I turned to Claire and said, "I think I'm going to vomit." I didn't actually vomit, but I've never been subjected to such a rough landing in my life. For a moment I almost wished myself back on one of those second-hand airplanes about to land on ice at the airport in Moscow. Almost.

Obviously, we survived the landing. We survived forty-five minutes clearing immigration and claiming bags. We opted out of digging my car out of the twelve inches of snow in the airport parking lot and hopped in a taxi. I rolled into my house at 5:12 AM, and when I walked into my bedroom Shaun sat up, looked at the clock, and said, "You have got to be kidding me."

Ditto that, Shaun. You have got to be kidding me. I have decided that I'm not leaving Newfoundland again until I'm not required to return. They'll have to repatriate us to the U.S. sometime in the next few years, right?