Stranded...

Little did I know that I would be writing again to document yet another adventure that can be included with the "France" chapter of my life.
On Saturday morning, I woke up on time, early even, to catch the TGV train to Paris. Because of the weather, the train ran a little under 1 hour late. My host father assured me that when the trains are delayed,the planes are delayed, so I was counting on the fact that my flight to Chicago would be an hour late. Not so. I arrived 5 minutes too late to check in to the flight. When I found that out, it seemed surreal and I wondered when I could get out of Paris and home. There were several girls in the same situation as well, so we all stood in line to talk to the United Airlines customer service. No one was happy, especially not the workers. When I got to the counter, my entire being was shaking, which resulted in the shaking of my voice when I talked to the man. I was as respectful as possible and he said the soonest he could get me a flight would be on the 24th. Other than that, I would have to be on standby each morning... which includes being there at the crack of dawn to "check-in" and wait until the last minute to see if they had any available slots on the flight. Needless to say, I was determined to the one of the first people on the list, so I stayed overnight in the Charles De Gaulle airport. I hung out with two other students who also had attended the Institute in Tours and we took turns watching the stuff and coming up with ideas to keep ourselves busy. As soon as I found out that we would be stranded the entire night, I began making lists and a schedule of the time, just to provide a distraction and a sense of purpose to the 24 hours of my life that I spent in that place.
I probably slept for about 20 minutes that first day because my nerves were too wired to let me rest enough to even get tired. We shared a computer between the three of us and bought 24 hours of internet. That was the only way I could contact anyone. I used the internet a lot... We camped out in front of the ticket counter around 3:30am with our luggage and our wacky senses of humor. At 6am, we decided to get Starbucks, which only aggravated my nerves, so I was bouncing off the walls. So much so that my friends took my coffee away from me and refused to let me finish it. I ended up sneaking sips anyways.
We all got on the standby lists, most for Washington DC with the belief that getting on that flight was nigh impossible, but it would help our chances for getting on the flight to Chicago. Imagine our surprise when they put over 20 standbys on the DC flight... I was one of them. I asked originally if I could change to Chicago, but the lady said no, so I took the ticket and literally ran to the flight. I almost started crying when I realized that I would not be stuck in the Paris airport for another night.
The flight didn't leave De Gaulle until 3 hours after the initial departure due to the snow in Paris, so it put us later into DC. Apparently, the snow canceled later flights, so it was quite the blessing to have made it out yesterday. The flight was bizarre, but I was very thankful for it. I also realized that Denver is a major hub for United flights, so that helped raise my spirits, along with watching 500 Days of Summer and Up... that was great. What was not great was that United had misplaced my bags that the anxiety returned. I waited for three hours to figure out what had happened to the two pieces of luggage that contained important things that had formed my life the past 3.5 months of my life... thankfully, they were sent to the wrong terminal. Once I had them, I talked to the lady at the counter and, after sharing my story with her, she decided that I needed a flight out and she got me a ticket for Denver that leaves at 8:30am Eastern time. That was an unseen blessing. Everyone here is looking for flights... EVERYONE. I walked up and down the Concourses C and D- the waiting rooms for the standbys were full. Thank you God that I do not have to go through that again.
My family told me when I skyped with them last night that they had driven to the airport last night in order to see if I had gotten on the Chicago flight... I, of course, could not have let them know anything because I had no way to send them the message that I had made the DC flight... Long story short, always bring a cell phone with you... it's just more safe and practical for everyone's sound mind.
The adventure is not quite finished and I didn't even give the entire account of what has happened to me in the past 48 hours... When I get home, I will probably write another blog recounting my joy at finally terminating my voyage home from the semester abroad.