Not Every Start is a Smooth One.

Here I am, waiting at a JFK gate for the second time today. Travel is a glamorous life, eh? After two fairly unevetful flights this morning, I arrived at JFK, 20 minutes late. I was let off the plane in the first group because my international flight was scheduled to board in 15 minutes. Ha. What a joke that ended up being. Wanna hear about it? Great!

First, the gate was unavailable. Now, JFK has one of THE WORST on time arrival/departure rates in the nation, so maybe I should have known a bit more what I was getting myself into. Buckle up. The flight scheduled to leave our gate before us was delayed for 2 hours for some reason. And they were all just sitting there. On the Tarmac. Ouch.  

Ok, so they moved our gate, no big deal. Then they had to move our plane. All of this plus some major seating issues means we boarded an hour late. Ok. We managed to take off only 40 minutes behind, and after a taxi that seemed like eternity, we were off! 

I bunkered down with a French art documentary to keep me awake until dinner was served, VERY excited for my upcoming 4hr nap. Then we got the announcement. 

        " We are passing the Boston cape and you may have noticed we have made a pretty big turn just now. We unfortunately are having a bit of a problem with our right air fan. It's not vital to fly, but it keeps the cabin pressurized above 27,000ft, which is important for your comfort ( um, yeah!)  we will be returning to  Kennedy and should be touching down in about 40 minutes. We will keep you posted."

Ok. Ok. 

So, here I am, sitting in JFK at 12:30 in the morning when I should be in the middle of the ocean! Once we landed, we did some preliminary tests whilst on board. The ground crew determined that the fix would take too long,

 so they have unloaded us all and our luggage, 

fed us dry airline food, (FYI, that sandwich is slimey turkey on dry bread with wilted spinach. That's it. Yuuuuuuuuuuum) ( it's ok though because double Biscoff cookies was worth it)

and we are awaiting the preparation of another aircraft that is supposedly on the property here. I will keep you posted. 

---update. The have issued us all new boarding passes and are assigning us a gate. We should be seated within the hour, hopefully. 

Also; if you ever use the ladies room between Bravo 33 and 31, the toilet is roughly 30,000,000 inches lower than you thought it would be, so don't fall. Like I did. 

I know some people might simply say "my flight was delayed", but my dad taught me the story is all in the telling, and I'd hate to be less dramatic than necessary.