Who says you can't go home?

Getting home is supposed to be sort of sad, bittersweet, but overall not rocket science. My trip home was supposed to start at 10 am Thursday (the 9^th) and end at 9pm in Detroit. I say supposed, because that isn’t what happened.

Megan's sort of hilarious currency collection

Thursday morning I said my goodbyes to Liana, and later on to Dominique. Chantal drove me to the train at around 9am, and I parted from her there. I found my platform and a little before 10 Megan and I boarded. The train itself was boring and uneventful, and I couldn’t help but nod off a few times. Little did I know that this was the last uncomplicated part of my voyage home. We got through security and all that fun stuff in CDG and managed to grab some lunch before our flight. Once on the flight…I realized it was going to suck. Our plane was huge (think 3 by 4 by 3) and I was in the middle row, between some dudes…that ended up being okay, and apart from severe antsyness (and 3 in flight movies) we landed in Montreal.

my hotel room-Montreal

Heres where the hell began. Before we’re off the plane, our names are being paged, but no one knows where it is we are supposed to go to. So we ask about 3 men before being directed through Canadian customs…and to the airfrance desk. We were told that due to the time we landed, we missed the chance to get through security again before our next flight, and even though it was delayed to take off until 9:45 a.m….we were being forced to stay overnight in one of the airports hotels. Both Megan and I wanted to cry when we heard the man tell us all of this…actually I started laughing..nervous reaction I guess?

Toronto..waiting

We hopped on the airport shuttle, unloaded our bags at the hotel, and managed to connect to the internet to inform our parents of the new time to get us in Detroit. (insert sigh here) delta(airfrance) paid for our hotel. And for our dinner that night, but let me tell you, it wasn’t worth it. At all.

At 3am, we found ourselves back at the airport, waiting to check in to our flight/go through security…well it wasn’t long before we were informed that our flight (set for 5:45) to Detroit…had been canceled, and the next one wouldn’t get us there until 3pm. At this point, I’m not proud of the fact I sort of lost my patience, but I pretty much flipped a nut (but stayed rather calm) and ended up forcing them to reroute us as many times as necessary to get us to Detroit sometime this century. Sigh.

Finally en route to D-town

We were put on a 5:30 am flight to Toronto, (connection to Detroit) and were supposed to land in Detroit at a little after noon. We had to go through security, recheck our bags, and get on the plane to Toronto…once there, we had to collect our luggage (im talking baggage claim) and go through American customs (weird) and then through security. All of that took a while, but initially was fine. We then sat in the Toronto airport….forever..and ever…and ever, and soon the clock changes from our departure time, to our arrival time, and we haven’t boarded yet. Sigh. Our flight crew got stuck in customs, and we ended up leaving an hour late (or more) and we officially landed in Detroit after 1pm. (Friday)

Well, it took a very long time, 1 train, 3 flights, 3 times through baggage claim, and back through security, Canadian and American customs,  and many many hours spent waiting..to finally make it home.