Airport troubles

December has certainly flown by, my goodness. And soon it will be 2013. I can't quite believe it! This semester has been very intense, both academically and musically. And I'm afraid next semester is going to be even worse, looking at my course schedule. Do you know when I am done with all of this I will have a degree in vocal performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music? I had a bit of trouble getting home for Christmas. I have started flying on a new airline that created a straight flight between my home in Montana and San Francisco, California. It's really nice because it also is really cheap. However my flight this Christmas turned out to be a bit of a nightmare... I was supposed to leave at 1:00 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, but a pilot got sick in the morning and they decided to give the pilot for our flight to an earlier flight, but then they couldn't find a replacement for our plane so the flight was delayed. At about 5:30 in the evening they announced that a pilot was on his way, but that it would take him an hour and 50 minutes before his train arrived at the airport. We ended up sitting in the airport until 7, however once the pilot had arrived, they realized that the flight crew had to leave because their shift had run out. And of course they didn't have a crew to replace them, either. So at about 7 in the evening they cancelled the flight, after making us sit in the airport and wait all day. Lots of little kids started crying, probably worried about missing Santa in the morning! And the airline actually brought in the sheriff and several policemen before they announced the flight was cancelled, just in case anybody lashed out in anger at them. So we all stayed overnight at a hotel near the airport (after waiting in line for another 2 hours for a voucher from the airline). They told us our flight would leave at 2:15 in the afternoon the next day on Christmas. But then the next day when we got on the plane, there was ice on the wings (which, incidentally, had come from Montana, where it was zero degrees!). The Oakland airport didn't have much in the way of de-icing equipment, so we just had to sit in the airplane for two hours while the ice slowly melted off the wings in the rain. I suggested to one of the passengers next to me that perhaps we should go sit on the wings to help warm them up instead of wasting our time in the seats in the cabin. But eventually we did take off, and I arrived back home at about seven in the evening, just in time for Christmas dinner with all of my family.

It is sooo nice to be home!!!