December 17-18
We started on such a high note. It was Friday - school was let out early due to snow (unfortunate foreshadowing that we missed), and we were going home in the morning. Life was good. Great even.
Then we stumbled into Woolwich en route to Krista's and were handed FREE, legitimate, 100 level Lady Gaga tickets. Life was fantastic.
Then we took the most hilarious busride to Krista and Erik's where the bus driver got so annoyed with us and our bags that he told us we were at our stop when we weren't (but not before Jock faceplanted into a random man as the doors opened into her back.) Arriving at the stop that was not our stop, we phoned up Krista to tell her we were here. Nope, we weren't. Douchebag bus driver. The next bus that came by, we were greeted by the world's nicest bus driver and bus-riders that helped us find our way safely to Krista's.
The co-op near Krista's house had police swarming it - there had been a "punch-up" and everyone was asking us if we knew anything about it. We did not. We moved on.
Krista served us mulled wine and snacks, and life was still really good. We went to bed all excited. We were going home in the morning.
We woke up at the god awful hour of 4am, packed our stuff into a cab at 5am and had a free, clear ride to Heathrow, arriving around 6am. We checked in, grabbed our boarding passes, did the whole security business, grabbed a casually slow breakfast and boarded our plane.
We were going home now! Yay.
Negative.
While we sat on the plane it started to snow. Knowing the way that England deals with snow, I closed my eyes and prayed we would get going before it built up. They deiced our plane. We taxied to the runway. We were going home now!
Negative. We waited and waited for runway clearance. My heart sank. I knew we weren't going anywhere anytime soon. We sat there another hour. We had missed our connecting flight from Paris to Toronto. We were not going home today. It was official. Damnit. At least if the plane moved, we could go to Paris, so there was still a light at the end of the tunnel. The pilot came overhead to announce that we were going to have to go back and de-ice again. NOOOOOO, we were ON THE RUNWAY. Now we are GOING BACK. Damnit. The pilot tells us a plane got caught on the runway ahead of us. We are next in line to go once the snow is cleared up. It stopped snowing. Let me stress. It stopped snowing approx 1 hour after it began snowing. There was approximately 4 inches of snow on the ground. Now it was a heavy snowfall. I will admit that. It dumped 4 inches of snow in one hour! Unreal! This would have caused inconvienience in Canada as well. Since it had stopped snowing, hope was renewed that we may leave here today. All we wanted to do was get to Paris, deal with getting on a different flight to Toronto tomorrow. That is all we wanted. What we did not want was to return into Heathrow airport with all the other stranded holiday travellors trying to get new flights. Nope. We were first in line. We were going to fly to Paris today and be home tomorrow.
Negative.
We sat in the plane, first in line for the runway for 5 hours. 5 hours. We were then forced to disembark because the crew had been working longer than was legal for people who are required to keep us safe in the air. Damn them. They assured us that we could line, up speak to their representatives and rebook our flights. Our flight in the meantime, was cancelled indefinitely.
We walked into Heathrow to get our bags (a luxury a lot of stranded travellors did not have, as some cargo holds became frozen shut in the 'storm' -aka 1 hour of heavy snowfall) we were bound and determined to get on the next plane that left Heathrow that day. Basically, we were delusional. We were flying with Air France, and they sent us in to get us a hotel, and get in line to rebook. We were once again on the other side of security. We went to book a hotel for the night, just in case. We still had some hope. Should have just went straight to the hotel.
We gave them our phone numbers and whatnot, and they promised us they would call us when they rebooked us. We begged them for any flight going to New York State, Ontario or Quebec in hopes to speed up our process.
After standing in the line to rebook for what seemed like an enternity, we were told that no flights would be going out again until 7pm. It was about 4pm. We decided to head into London, try to rebook on the phone or online and come back at 7 to try our luck. We went for dinner at the ever luxurious McDonalds in trendy Hammersmith (Hammersmith is actually very trendy, but in our moods we felt McDonalds was the best place for us - and free WIFI!)
We got some incoming news from friends- Krista and Erik also waited on their plane for 5 hours before it was officially cancelled. Air Canada told them they would fly out the next day at 11am, and kept all of their bags on the plane, so they were hopeful.
Ang & Ryan got home successfully.They flew out right before the snow. We are furiously jealous.
Alexis is still waiting for a flight to France at Gatwick.
Rach & Mike are at Gatwick also, hoping to get out on Monday.
Kari calls with the last, devestating news - her flight, meant to leave at 6pm, delayed until 11pm had officially been cancelled. No flights were going in and out of Heathrow that night.
Feeling awful and hopeless, we headed to the hotel Air France put us up in, it was very business class and nice. They gave us three single beds (we got Kari in on this deal too, even though she was meant to fly with Air Canada), so naturally we all just snuggled into one.
We booked a cab back to Heathrow in the morning. Tomorrow we would go home.
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