Happy New Year!

This week I had to leave the coutry because my visa only permits me to be in the country for a certain amount of time. The plans were to leave on new years eve and arrive in the morning, but that was just the plan. Everything went smoothly going from our first flight to the capitol with the international airport and we even got on the plane with plenty of time to spare. But after an hour or two sitting at the gate the captain said we would be delayed a bit. So we started a movie on my computer, which died within 30 min. After a few more minutes, the captian said that the fog was too heavy to take off and the flight would be cancelled. Usually when something like this happens, they would make an announcement saying to go to a certain desk or even say when the flight is scheduled to resume, but all the captain said was something to the effect of "the crew needs to rest for the flight tomorrow, see you then." No instructions, no appologies, only the assurance that the pilot would be awake for the flight the following day, the time of which was still unknown.

After we got off the plane, I interrupted a group of airport employees' conversation to ask where we were to go and one casually pointed to one direction then went back to talking with his coworkers. We asked a few other workers on the way to wherever it was that he pointed to with no avail. Finally we found a line with people who looked familiar and hopped in. While in line, several people pushed their way into the line wherever they pleased (this is common here). after some time we heard a half-hearted cheer from within the group/line and we assumed that it was the new year.

Once in the front of the line, an employee stamped our tickets. We had to ask someone else where to go and they said a bus would take us to a hotel. Once on the bus a woman from first class asked if they fed us while on the plane, we laughed... and sighed. After we got to the hotel, we discovered that we ended up on the same bus as the first class flyers and the hotel was the nicest one i have ever stayed in in my life. It even beat the Waldorf Astoria in New York! When we arrived, there was a really nice meal for us and in the morning we had the breakfast buffet which if you were to pay for would be about $20 per person. From then on, everything was on time and we arrived at our hotel we were intending to be at about 12 hours late, but the free hotel room made up for it.