Jenny's journey

At 2:50a.m. on Sunday morning (when North Americans had not yet gone to bed on Saturday night) a taxi drew up on a street in York, England, to take Jenny to the railway station. Her "train" to Manchester turned out to be a bus to Leeds, followed by a proper train from Leeds to Manchester reaching the airport by about 6a.m. As it happened, Jenny needn't have set off quite so early because her flight to Newark, New Jersey, was 270 minutes late taking off. The check-in staff at Manchester advised her to assume she'd not be flying on to Ottawa until Monday and took the precaution of booking her onto a connecting flight from Newark that would leave the following day. Landing at Newark airport at the very time she was scheduled to land in Ottawa, according to her original schedule, Jenny had already missed her connection by a couple of hours.

Admittedly a major winter storm had been raging all across New England and eastern Canada, which explains the delay and the thousands of displaced travellers at Newark airport, but that is no excuse for the baggage handlers not knowing which terminal was the right one for flights to Ottawa. Because this was the U.S.A., Jenny had to reclaim her case (large backpack) in order to carry it through U.S. customs before checking for her flight to Canada. Having reached the Departures hall she then stood in the transfer queue for two hours. We managed to communicate with her from Ottawa at this point; she told us there was just a chance she might still get a seat on a late flight to Ottawa before the end of the day. However, no chance, all the flights were fully booked, and it was just as well Manchester had had the sense to book her on a Monday morning flight or she wouldn't have been allowed on that one, either. Rather than spend the rest of her very long day at Newark airport she sensibly found accommodation at a nearby hotel although Continental Airlines had informed her they were not willing to pay for a hotel room because the weather was considered to be an Act of God rather than the company's fault. They also told Jenny to make sure she returned to the airport by 7a.m. at the latest to catch her 8:45 flight to Ottawa.

The next morning, the shuttle bus driver took her to the wrong terminal. On realising this, she hurried off to catch the "air train" heading towards the correct terminal ... and it broke down. All its passengers were told to stay on the train, and then told to get off. It transpired that none of the other trains were working either at that juncture. Jenny asked for help and was told to find Gate 71. She had no idea where that might be, couldn't see any directions, so asked someone else, a security guard, for help. He wouldn't let her go until she'd calmed down (!) but pointed her in the right direction telling her she should be able to walk it; it would take her ten minutes. She then set off in rather a panic, but in the right direction. She needn't have rushed. The flight for Ottawa didn't depart until 10:55. The cafe queues being too long to join, Jenny bought herself a bag of nuts and raisins for breakfast. On the flight she was also served a muffin and a drink.

It was a sunny but bumpy flight over the Adirondack mountains. Even at Ottawa the wind was gusting to 45 kph so she suffered a bumpy landing as well. Two other 'planeloads from the USA had arrived just ahead of Jenny's flight, so the immigration baggage reclaim halls were very crowded. In fact we waited another two hours before she came through the International Arrivals doors at Ottawa airport, the main reason for the delay being the fact that her suitcase had not turned up, so that she had to fill in a claim form. The last straw was that she was also escorted into a side office away from Passport Control and given a lengthy grilling by a Canadian Immigration officer who asked all kinds of impertinent, personal and humourless questions about why Jenny could possibly want to visit Ottawa at this time of year to visit people to whom she wasn't even related, and why she hadn't wanted to spend Christmas at home in England with her own family. Jenny assured them that we are friends of her family, but that didn't cut much ice. The officer wanted to know if we were bona fide Canadian Citizens. She wishes she had been forewarned of these questions, as she found them quite intimidating and can't imagine what she has done to deserve such discourteous treatment.

We bought Jenny lunch on our way home, as all three of us were famished by the time we were able to drive out of the airport.

This afternoon, after several vain attempts to call Continental Airlines to find out where Jenny's luggage might be, she went shopping for some spare clothes. This evening, though, we had two calls from Ottawa airport, the first to say the luggage had been identified and put aside for delivery to our house within three or four hours. The second call was less optimistic, telling us that we can (apparently) expect its arrival "sometime before midnight." As I was rereading this blog post before publishing, I am glad to report that Jenny's luggage finally arrived. It has taken three whole days.