Je ne sais pas.... Canada say whaat? Part I

So Canada happened. Canada as in, my flight out of Montreal to the US was canceled on Friday night and I had to stay two nights in a Canadian hotel! "Je ne sais pas" is French for "I don't know," (or my favorite translation, "I have not the foggiest idea") which was pretty much my only thought all of Friday night... I have no idea what the heck I'm supposed to do..

I should have known it would be a rough trip when, on the train, I first sat in first class and had to move when the ticket lady informed me of this (I wondered why the seats all looked so nice... I blame lack of sleep!); I moved seats and was fine for a few stops until a huge crowd of chattering German high schoolers got on board and eventually communicated to me that I was sitting in a seat that they had reserved, so I moved again; two stops later, oops! Sitting in yet another reserved seat! Luckily, this woman was super nice and explained to me how to tell which seats are reserved and which aren't, and I found one that was open. Once in Frankfurt, I found one of the girls from my program - we knew we were on the same train, but didn't find each other until at the Frankfurt station - so we successfully navigated our way to the airport (although the signs there were seriously unhelpful) and our gate, since we were on the same flight. Phew, step one, complete!

Krista and me, waving goodbye from Frankfurt airport!

I only had one hour to clear US customs/security and get to my gate, so Krista and I said goodbye at the beginning of the flight and I high-tailed it off of the plane. While in line for customs, my mom texted me saying my flight was delayed an hour. Crap. I'd have only twenty minutes to clear security again and catch my second flight... this would be tricky. I got to my gate and bought some dinner (it was 4pm EST, but felt like 10pm due to jet-lag) when disaster struck. My flight was delayed another hour and intense thunderstorms were rolling in. Krista and I got in contact, since her flight was also delayed, and we found each other again, trying to figure out what we should do. Then my flight just got canceled altogether! We said goodbye yet again and I went off with my fellow passengers to reclaim our luggage and figure out what the heck to do.

After finding my checked baggage (at least I didn't lose my luggage, that's the one thing that went right!) and clearing Canadian customs, I went in search of the United Airlines desk to rebook my flight. There were two women working at the desk and dozens of stranded passengers. For 40 minutes I was on the phone with the UA helpdesk, while still waiting in line, but nothing was available. There were no flights to JFK, Dulles, Newark, LaGuardia - anything and everything to the US was booked full. Finally I got to the front desk and they found a flight for me on Sunday night at 7pm. So that left me two entire days to kill in Montreal, Canada. At this point, it was about 9:15pm EST, and felt like 3am. Luckily, there was a shuttle from the airport to two hotels - Best Western and Fairfield Marriot. On the shuttle, I found two other women, also stranded. One already had called the hotel and booked a room, but the second and I were just hoping against all hope that there would be something for us. (Everyone in the airport line had been calling hotels and everything was full.) Luckily again, the woman at the hotel desk was very friendly and sympathetic and somehow found us a room that we could share. After a quick shower, I passed out around 11pm, which felt like 5am. What a day!