Our Journey Across the World: Bangor - NYC

Our trip began in Bangor, ME. It is a small kind of airport. There were no problems there, thankfully. We said good bye to Mom and Big Sister, and then went through customs. We had to get rid of our toothpaste. It was too big for carry on luggage. That's fine. The usually very serious security men were actually joking around with Derek about his Toronto Maple Leafs hat. He gets that a lot, LOL. It actually is a great tool to break the ice.

So, on the flight from Bangor to New York, everything went very well. We got to NYC, and figured out where we needed to be. We had to wait in one part of the airport, for a shuttle to the next part. It was a time to relax, rest up and just do some people watching, which is always interesting in the airports. Finally, the shuttle busses were ready, and we went down to them. We got on one bus, and then they decided that it was too small, and we'd have to get off, to get on another. (This should have been a sign of things to come....) Finally, we made it to the correct terminal at JFK to catch our flight to St. Paul, Minnesota. We were thirsty, and so we got each of us a bottle of pop. It cost us $6.00 for the two pops. That kind of set the tone for us, money wise. We knew that if we at at airports, it was going to be expensive. (Unfortunately, we were both hungry.... LOL ) Finally, after a bit of a long wait, it was time to board our plane for St. Paul. So far, so good, right? We got on the plane, got into our seats, and then all hell broke loose.

The pilot came on the intercom and stated that the plane we were on was missing a rear tail light. Of course, these lights are essential for take off. The maintenance crew is searching the airport for a replacement. Oh... okay. At this time, we were a little concerned, our shortest transfer time was actually in St. Paul, and we didn't have a lot of time to get from one place to another for our transfer. After about a five minute wait, the girl sitting next to us informed us that she had just received an Orbitz travel advisory, that the flight we were on was delayed, about an hour and a half. Oh.. wow. So, sitting in our seats, listening to a mad woman behind us complaining about "Why did they even let us board? Are they going to make us sit here for forever?" and so on, and arguing with her husband, because he's talking to his buddies on the phone about how he's going to be late and so on, we were just trying not to panic.

See, we had a huge problem. We had flights from Bangor to Las Vegas, and then another set of flights from Las Vegas to Korea. They were not connected, so if even just one little thing went wrong, we could have been screwed, and I knew this, and so things were a bit tense...

Shortly later, the pilot came on the intercom and let us know that a replacement bulb had been found at LaGuardia. He said it would take them about 2 hours to bring it over, and to have it installed. Oh... my.... We didn't really know what to do. They had decided that people could either choose to get off the plane if they wanted, or to stay on it. If they wanted to see about making arrangements for connecting flights that would be missed, then they could do so. When we got off the plane, there was a line up at the counter, and no one was really doing anything. Some people started making two lines, and I, of course, having the big mouth that I did, said.. "I don't know why people need to make two lines. We're all in the same boat." At which point, some jerk from Calgary decided to turn around and tell me like it was. Derek told me to "Shhhhh....." and then I was not very happy. (Yes, putting it mildly.) The counter agent told us we could wait and take this flight, or if we wanted help figuring out missed connections, to go upstairs to the 4th floor and talk to an agent up there. We all started hurrying up there, and got into a line. Up there, there was one person, helping everyone, and people were of course still just forming random lines, and no one was getting anywhere. After standing in line for about 45 minutes, we heard a final boarding call for the flight we were supposed to be on. We didn't know if we'd have time to make our connecting flight to Las Vegas, but we decided we'd try to make that flight.

So, we ran (and  yes, I do mean ran) down to security and saw the huge line up for that and knew we were screwed. One security lady asked me if I was okay. I was breathing hard, and she didn't want me to pass out. We told her we were just trying to make it to our flight, and she said not to worry, she would tell them we were coming, and then she helped us very quickly get through security, and get all of our stuff. She was absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, we still didn't make the flight. We were at the gate just as they closed the door, and they would not open the door. There was even another guy who had just missed it, and had actually left his bags on the plan in all the confusion. We told them that we didn't hear the boarding announcements upstairs, until the final one, and that they sent us upstairs, and there weren't enough people to deal with it.

Meanwhile, they were going to be boarding another plane to St. Paul, but of course our connection to Las Vegas would be missed. So, I asked them if they had any flights from St. Paul to San Francisco, so that we could get our flight to Korea. After a lot of waiting, and hoping, and frustration, they got us on that upcoming flight to St. Paul. They assured us that once we get to St. Paul, we would get a voucher for a hotel, and also that we could get a boarding pass for the first flight in the mornin to San Francisco. So, we got on the plane, and then.... the waiting began. It had started snowing, and so we had to go through a de-icer. Unfortunately, there was a very long line up for it, and so I'm pretty sure we sat in the plane for two hours before we took off. By this time it was about 12 hours since we'd eaten, we were hungry, tired, and getting quite cranky.