So everyone knows that flights can get delayed or may have to go land somewhere else due to weather. But when you are flying home from practically a month long trip away from your family for the first time you kind of don't want to deal with this at all! Well that is how I felt when I was flying home from my month of study abroad in Ecuador! I was so excited to be getting back into the United States to get home go out to lunch and then sleep the rest of the day, but I did not get that. Instead I got to stop in another country for roughly ten hours. I now have the pleasure of being able to say that technically I have been to the Bahamas my passport would not prove it but this lovely story should!

So we are setting off for our first flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Miami Florida on the 22nd of January at 11:56pm! Planning to get into Miami airport around 4:30am and then flying to Reagan National Airport in DC at 7:30am landing at 9:30am if all things go to plan. We get on our flight to Miami, I of course have the middle seat but we get fed and have Storks the movie to watch. The plane did not have the air vents that you can easily adjust to face you so I was a little warm and sleeping in the middle seat is not the easiest thing to do no matter how small you are. I did manage to sleep a little but when I saw on the flight map that we were almost to Miami I was too excited! The captain comes on the intercom and says about 20 more minutes! This will be a breeze I cannot wait to be in the United States and so much closer to home. Then maybe 10 minutes go by the captain is back on the intercom saying there is a storm over Miami we will wait till it's gone hopefully another 20 minutes, this will put us behind schedule. I knew that when we got to Miami it is crucial that we make it on time to make sure we get through customs and on our flight to DC so I was starting to get concerned. Then we make a loop over the ocean and he is back on saying that the storm is not gone so we have to go land in Nassau, Bahamas.

We land in Nassau around maybe 4:30am probably closer to 5am, the captain has informed us it will probably be an hour so we can kiss our flight to DC goodbye! But the thing is no flights were planned at the Nassau airport so there is no one there, no workers, nothing! That leaves us to sit on the tarmac for 3 hours, some of it was spent sleeping the rest a little angry! After about 3 hours of staying on the plane we are informed that our crew has reached their max 14 hours of work so they cannot just fly us back to Miami after the storm like the other planes diverted to Nassau, no we must get off the plane and wait for a new crew to be flown in. So as I mentioned before the airport was not opened so when we got off the Dunkin Donuts that was there was not operating so they made a huge order to Dunkin for us to have some sort of food!

The donuts were another issue since they wanted to make sure everyone who needed a donut would have one but of course there are greedy people who may have taken more than one or gotten in line multiple times before everyone had one! Finally once we were fed donuts we still just had to wait and wait and wait. Then our pilot was there! Thank goodness the pilot was there but guess who wasn't... THE CAPTAIN! So we were still stuck waiting and then finally the captain was there and he was making his checks and then at 1pm we were let back on the plane. The story continues though, even after being stuck for practically 9 hours we sat on the tarmac yet again because apparently the seating chart or whatever did not match...

Finally at 2pm we left Nassau, Bahamas for Miami Florida and this time we made it at 3pm we were in the United States. Customs was a breeze and no one had to have their bag checked, perhaps they knew the struggle we have already had! But then we had to find a new connection into DC, the man at the counter offered me a delightful 6:45pm stand-by ticket and it was extremely tempting but I was over not knowing when I would be home so I took the confirmed flight at 9:40pm. Most of our group got an 8:30 flight but that was fine there was never anything I could do!

At 12:30am Tuesday the 24th of January after over 24 hours of painful travel we made it to DC. My parents were waiting for me and I got my bag and we got home around 1:30am! I fell asleep as planned and did not wake up until 2pm Tuesday. Ecuador was the best experience of my life and this rough travel experience could never have changed that! Although it was painful I was always happy to be safe and on my way home. Traveling, especially flying, is up to chance and is scheduled around the weather so it is best to take what comes and know it's better to be safe than sorry!