stranded

By 2:00 Thursday afternoon I waved by last goodbyes and settled in for a shuttle ride to Philly, after the frantic packing chaos had finally ended. Two other passengers, a guy by the name of Dane, and his mother, chatted with me about running and teaching and living in Arizona We ran into each other at least 5 more times at the airport while waiting for our delayed flights. I also met a couple from Toronto (the lady was also a teacher) who loved my bunny and thought I was hilarious for whatever reason. After stuffing myself with more greasy American food (the day's total consisting of McDonald's and a Philly cheese steak), I met Mayita, who had exactly the same itinerary as me. Turns out she is a coordinator for teachers in Puerto Varas, Chile. She flies to Santiago periodically to work with the English program in schools there. How exciting- the perfect person to meet! Hopefully I will get a chance to visit one of her schools. After boarding the plane to Toronto, we hear the captain tell us that there are 30 planes ahead of us waiting to take off. 30!! Upon arrival, we find that we have missed our connecting flight, the only one to Santiago for 24 hours. Great. After waiting 45 minutes for our luggage (which was in the wrong place), we realize that basically the entire airport has shut down. And no one we found could help us at all, including all information services and helplines. After a grand tour of the entire airport at least twice, we finally encounter airport employees who can help us. At 3am. They set us up in a sweet hotel and gave us 5 meals (though we used all 3 of our vouchers for the hotel food on one meal), in addition to a limo ride to and from the airport. Not so bad. After a very late night snack and some great conversation, we took the shady taxi, after some persuasion (the limos had all gone) to our safe haven. After spending the next day walking around in Toronto,which was fun, I am antsy to fly out. Highlights of this adventure include the best cheese spinach soup ever, hearing a real Canadian accent for the first time, having my stuffed bunny, Inca Toll, accidentally go off singing "Making Melodies" 5 times, including while we are checking into the hotel (everyone in the vicinity was intrigued, let me tell you), and finding out that Canada has a $2 coin- how cool is that?