Now, usually, going home from a trip doesn’t merit an entire blog post, but I foresee in the future using this as a way to one-up anyone who thinks they had a bad flight. (Oh, you think YOUR travel was bad? Check THIS out., that kind of thing.)

The day started out promisingly. A few of us got a taxi to the airport, no problem there. We got in line to check in for our flight when there was hardly anyone ahead of us. (Within moments, the line was massive.) These all bode well for a nice trip home, eh?

Then Simon said, “did you know we’re stopping in Bangor, Maine?” and that kind of feels like the beginning of the end.

No, I’m just being dramatic. I had a super long layover in Newark anyway, and what turned out to be a refueling stop in Maine (wtf?) wasn’t going to affect me except to make me spend less time in Newark. I mean, who wants to spend a lot of time at the Newark airport? Not me!*

So after a trip through duty-free and a quick breakfast with Beckett, we got on our flight. I had an empty seat next to me, so about half an hour into the flight, Beckett moved over so we got to sit together. Yay!

Our flight was pretty long – 10.5 hours altogether, including our short jaunt in Bangor, which was really snowy and apparently like -45 degrees or something absurd. So I guess making a snow angel wasn’t in the cards. (But we did get 5000 miles or $100 flight voucher for our troubles, so that was nice.)

Anyway, I wanted to interject and give quick reviews of the four movies I watched on the plane.

• Edge of Tomorrow – very entertaining.
• Tammy – Beckett and I watched this together (we synchronized our personal video display screens) and it was funny enough.
• I, Origins – I probably wouldn’t have chosen this if the woman in front of me didn’t have it on her screen. My eyes kept drifting to it, so I felt compelled to watch it. Aside from one icky scene, it was actually pretty good. Not as pretentious as I’d feared. Also, the lead’s last name is Pitt, but I don’t think he’s related to Brad, but he’s sure cultivating the look.
• Blended – again, watched this one with Beckett. Pretty terrible, but I love Drew Barrymore, and we were nearing the end of a very long flight, so standards were low.

Beckett’s purple hair got us a couple of bottles each of free wine on the flight, which was pretty awesome, and the flight attendant even walked by once and slipped me some chocolates and cookies. I mean, great flight, right?!?

So far, so good. I was tired (we established from the flight there that I cannot sleep on planes no matter what) but hey, getting closer to home and my bed.

Four of us (Sandy, the Snows, and I) grabbed dinner at Newark after getting through customs and we were all feeling the exhaustion. After eating, we made our way to our gates and sat, zombie-like, as we waited for our flight to be called.

Finally, I was on my plane and on my way home! Just a 3.5 hour flight! No biggie! Maybe I’d even doze a little bit!

So we fly, and fly, and fly. When we’re about an hour and a half from home sweet home, the pilot comes over the PA system.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, blah blah blah, we’re turning around and going back to Newark.”

I don’t honestly remember what his reasoning was. Weather, visibility, something like that.

{Turns out it was a landing system outage at the airport? Plus fog?}

Why we had to go alllll the way back to Newark is still a mystery to me. But we did. And by the time we got back, it was almost midnight. The airport was deserted. They had already rebooked us on 6am flights the next morning so sleep wasn’t going to really happen anyway.

Nevertheless, I asked for a hotel room so I wouldn’t have to snuggle on the floor of the airport, trying to get some rest with CNN blaring.

By the time I got to the lovely Ramada Plaza – Newark Airport, it was 2am, and I had to be on the shuttle back to the airport at 4:30. But man that two hours of sleep felt good.

Fortunately, the flight home was pretty uneventful. I dozed, slack-jawed and drooling for a few minutes at a time in my middle seat, so hey, I’ve finally figured out how to sleep on airplanes! My suitcase made it home, nothing was broken, and it only took a minute to get a taxi home, where I promptly took a four hour nap.

And thus ends my tale of woe. Written out, it doesn’t sound as bad as it was. I need to work on my story.

*that’s foreshadowing, my friend.