virgin.atlantic.rocks.

So no posts over the past few days with good reason- a huge snowstorm. My flight was scheduled to take off at 8:40pm on friday night, the same day boston was hit with a very snowy, very windy storm. At the time we were leaving for the airport (*ja* drove me in- thank you!) there was no delay or cancellation, despite the rough driving. We got there around six, and grabbed a quick dinner before I went through security. Around 7:30, they announced that the flight would be delayed since the runways were shut down, and the incoming flight from london wasn't allowed to land. (It circled over logan for almost two hours (after a seven + hour flight from london) and eventually had to be rerouted to jfk since it was running low on fuel.) They were convinced that we would get out, but it would just take some time until the plane could get refuled and out of jfk (since they were overloaded down there with all the rerouting going on). There seemed to be a bit of a competition going on between virgin atlantic and british airways- both had flights going to london heathrow, and both were waiting for rerouted planes to make it back to logan. Unfortunately for me, british airways was the only one to get out that night. Mainly because their plane had been rerouted to montreal instead of jfk. We all kept hanging around, hoping we'd get out of there, but finally, at 3:30am, they cancelled our flight and rebook us all on a 7:40pm flight saturday night (23 hours late). An icelandair flight to zurich had been cancelled around 1am, and I listened as they announced that there were no more hotels available in boston, that everyone was on their own, and that they wouldn't be able to be rebooked until the 19th (moday). I worried that we'd end up in a similar situation, but that wasn't the case. Virgin atlantic set us all up with rooms at the seaport hotel (super nice) along with food vouchers to their restaurant (super delicious) and bused us over and back. They apparently got about 150 rooms, and we had $45 to spend on food. I considered going home since they offered to pay us for a taxi there and back, but decided to take advantage of a free hotel. I have to say- if I couldn't be in london, this was the second best place to be. I snuggled in the super warm, high thread count sheets, and slept for four hours before getting up to shower before breakfast. I filled up on high quality breakfast food, took an hour nap, and then had a glass of wine with lunch before checking out at 3:30 and hoping on the bus back to the airport. Our flight got out on time, and I caught about 1.5 hours of sleep before landing in london at about 6:45am their time (so 2:45am boston time). I met up with *kb* and we got back to their place soon afterwards. I'd decided to make myself stay up until a regular bedtime in order to get the jet lag over with, but since I'd only had about seven hours of sleep over the previous 48 hours, this was easy said than done. Regardless, I managed to do it, mostly by keeping busy and doing some touristy stuff. They had a babysitter come at 7, and the three of us went to a gastro pub called the fat badger for dinner. (I'll write another post specifically about this later on.) It was unbelievably good. Then we went to the windsor castle for drinks afterwards, and this was easily the coolest, best bar I've ever been to. (On a sidenote, it's sad that the british folks can still smoke in bars. I was very stinky when we got home, and now have to wash my jeans again.) When I fell into bed at 11pm (7pm boston time), my body was happier than it had ever been to lay down. I slept for 11.5 hours, and woke up a new person. Jet lag? No longer applicable.