Home!

Alright, I'm finally home. I wrote a very bitter and angry post while sitting in the Guatemala City airport this morning/afternoon, but now that I'm home I'm not quite so bitter and angry anymore. Here's today's events:

This morning I took a shuttle to the airport in Guatemala at 9 a.m.. No problem there. I arrived around 10 a.m., and my flight was scheduled for 1:20 p.m., so all was going well. Then it all kind of went downhill. 1:20 p.m. came and went, and we were moved to three different gates before they informed us that the flight to Ft. Lauderdale would be coming in late. Gee whiz. I had a four hour layover, so I wasn't too worried about missing my connecting flight to NYC until I overheard someone saying they weren't going to make their flight to NYC. So I went to the desk and they told me the plane was so delayed we were going to be stuck in Guatemala until at least 4:00. I was offered a hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale and a 7:00 a.m. flight for tomorrow or I could stay in Guatemala but they wouldn't find me a hotel and they wouldn't pay for anything, so I started freaking out because I wanted to be home so incredibly badly. I didn't have a phone and there were no phones or computers in the entire airport for me to call home and tell my mom the situation, so I of course did what any incredibly stressed out individual stuck by herself in Guatemala would do and I cried. I'm pretty sure everyone knows me as the crying girl now. The people sitting next to me on the flight confirmed my suspicion.

After sitting around the airport for a total of almost six hours, I was happy to see the plane arrive in Guatemala around 3:30. We were in the air at 4:30, so they said we wouldn't make it to the NY flight in time because though the flight was only two hours and 15 minutes long, the time difference added an hour and we would get in as the NYC plane was taking off. I resigned myself to another night away from home. However, as we approached Ft. Lauderdale, they said they were holding the LaGuardia flight for people who needed to connect, since we got in about 15 minutes after their initial take-off time. Of course, I was all the way in the back on the plane and still had to go through customs and security and get to the gate, so I basically had to run. The people next to me were very nice and helped me get off the plane faster. I practically pushed old ladies out of the way to get to the customs line and through security as quickly as possible, then said goodbye to my luggage (I had no time to claim it and check it onto the right flight) and ran to the gate.

When I got to the gate, two women were standing there in an empty waiting area, and I told them I needed to get onto the LaGuardia flight. They looked up my records and said I was booked for a flight tomorrow morning and they couldn't let me on the plane, so I instantly burst into tears and started crying about how stressed out I am and how I need to be on that plane so I can get home. Crying always works. I think I frightened them a bit. They were very nice and opened the security doors to let me onto the plane, where lots of pissed off people scoffed at me for holding up their flight a whole 30 minutes. I wanted to tell them about my 3.5 hour delay in Guatemala.

Now at last I'm home, and when I got home around midnight Becky, Elise, and Caitlyn surprised me with a Carvel Cookie Puss that we demolished in a gory mess of ice cream and whipped cream http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifand crunchies. Good times. It's really great to be home and great to have such wonderful friends. Hopefully my luggage will make it home sometime soon, too. It's on vacation in Ft. Lauderdale for a bit.

Once I got back and checked my voicemail, I also discovered I got the photography internship at National Geographic that I applied for months ago and didn't think I'd get. I'm so excited about being home and starting this internship and spending time with friends this last week before heading back to Columbia. I've had enough Guatemala for quite a while. I'll be back someday to see Tikal, but for now I'm all about NY.

There will probably be one or two more posts with photos, then this blog will have run its course. Night!