JFK Airport: 15th Hour.

Well to say that my adventure has begun would be an understatement, as the past 24 hours have been filled with turmoil and apprehension.  

It all began on Christmas, when the weather forecast reported that a giant storm was set to come in and blanket the Northeast. Everyone knows that snow never equates to good things when traveling, and this was supposed to be a lot of snow. Even though our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 10:35 pm, my mom and I decided it was best leave bright and early the next day in order to beat the snow on the drive down. We were able to make it from Mass to New York without a single problem--no traffic, no snow, no car troubles. We seemed to be off to a promising start.

Then our flight dilemmas began.

By the time we arrived in New York, airports were already cancelling flights. Come 3 o’clock, nearly all of the flights out of JFK and surrounding airports had been canceled. E-mails were flooding my inbox from other students on the trip telling of delays and cancellations. Taxi services had shut down and there were blizzard advisories all over the news. However, for some unknown reason, our flight from JFK to Lima remained on-time and scheduled. So, ignoring all of our intuitions about snow and airplanes, my mom, grandma, travel companion, Jennifer, and me packed up our things and started our crazy escapade to the airport.

My mom was literally wonder woman.

Shoveling out our car in the parking lot, navigating through snowy, unplowed roads, pulling over to de-ice the wiper blades, and occasionally running red lights to keep momentum, my mom stopped at nothing to make sure we arrived to our destination. No snow was going to stop her and she was able to do all of these amazing acts with composure (Just throwing it out there, I think she should be on the next season of Survivor).

What should have been a 20 minute drive took over an hour but either way we had finally made it to the airport.

Check-in and security gave no problems, but I didn’t really expect any considering the fact that the airport was completely desolate. When Jenn and I got to our gate met up with some other girls on the trip and settled in; things were actually starting to look up. Around 9:30 I started getting curious about why we hadn’t begun boarding so I took a look at the flight information board and was met with disheartening news. Our flight was delayed until the next morning.

Mom’s words were ringing in my eyes: “if your flight is canceled you are sticking it out there for the night”, which is exactly what we did.

Our flight group was taken to a baggage claim area and told to set up shop for the night. Thanks to Tylenol PM I was able to manage a couple hours of sleep, but they were not exactly the most comfortable. The hard tile, random screaming men, and parades of flight crews kept me on edge and in and out of dreams.  When I finally woke up and took a stroll to the beloved flight information board I was met with more good news, our flight had been “postponed indefinitely”. What this means exactly I am yet to find out. No one I have talked to thus far has been able to provide any concrete answers, other than that we have to wait until the airline officially opens to know when our flight will leave (est. opening time 4 o’clock). 

So, in the mean time we are remaining in our happy little campsite in the corner of Baggage Claim Area #2 and dreaming of the Peruvian landscape will be exploring (hopefully within the next 24 hours!)