1) My (original) flight home was canceled.
Yes, that's right. My fears were confirmed on Friday night when I looked on to good ole' alaskaair.com to check my flight status and I was met with large red lettering that spelled out c-a-n-c-e-l-e-d. :( My heart sank because last year, a huge storm in the Pacific Northwest caused massive flight cancellations, and led to me literally missing Christmas at home and spending it in various airports across the country. Luckily, after waiting on hold for two hours with an Alaska Air agent, I was able to (sorrrtt of) get seats home. So that's where I find myself now--enjoying the free WIFI 10,000 feet in the air on a Delta plane in flight 2 of 5 en route to Dutch Harbor. (Newark-Cincinnati, Cincinnati-Seattle, Seattle-Anchorage, Anchorage-Sand Point/Cold Bay, Cold Bay-Dutch Harbor).
2) When life gives you snow... make the best of it.
I can't say that I didn't see the flight cancellation coming, though. For days the media was abuzz with warnings of a "historic" blizzard headed to the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic--and boy did it snow! The day after the big storm E and I tried to venture out into the world and were met with varied success. I had fun dancing around the car and wiping it off after the big snowfall while E fiddled with the heating system. We thought about making snow angels or snowmen because there was a good foot of fresh, fluffy, untouched snow and no one in Hofstra's many fields of massive parking lots. But then, E fixed the heat and my wiping job was done, so we decided to venture off in the Cougar to see what havoc the blizzard had caused!
3) Flat tires are never fun.
E and I managed to get as far as a half mile, at best, before we were met with an unpleasant scraping noise and an overwhelming odor of burning rubber. Yep, to add insult to injury after being stranded on Long Island for another two days, we got the good old flat tire. Luckily, E is "pro at saving the day", as B would say, and put on the spare with ease. Unfortunately, the tire places were all closed for the day so after I dropped E off at the train station I parked the Coug in her normal little spot.. and there she will sit until I return back to campus at the end of January.
4) Public transportation and I have this complicated love-hate relationship. Maybe you understand?
Now I am reluctant to say anything bad about the services that I use on a regular basis, rely on on many occasions, and intend to heavily use in the future. But public transportation (at least in the NYC metropolitan area) is not always easy! Because the closest Alaska Air flies is Newark, NJ I have to use a series of forms of public transportation to get myself (and whatever over-sized up-to-the-maximum-weight baggage I can manage) to the terminal. It starts with a Hofstra 'blue beetle' or cab ride to the Long Island Rail Road, then an hour-ish train ride to Penn Station in Manhattan, then an hour-ish train ride on the New Jersey Transit to Newark Intnl Airport. Although the system is usually efficient (or at least on time) today many trains (including both of mine) were delayed by a half hour to an hour due to the accumulation of snow on the tracks after the blizzard. Because of the delays, I cut it close and (literally) just made it to my flight to Cincinnati.
5) I have a camera battery charger = pictures for my posts!
So I was going through my electronic-y randoms drawer when I was packing my suitcase last night, and guess what I found? The replacement camera battery charger that I bought when I got back to New York.. the same one that I thought I had left in Alaska. Hmm.. how did I block that out? Go me. Oh well, at least I have it now, so I was able to snap a couple of pictures of the stressful trip through Long Island-Manhattan-Jersey-Ohio/Kentucky via cabs, trains, and airplanes!
