My New Years

I realize this is a little late, but I wanted to tell everyone how I spent New Years.

I was traveling back from San Francisco on New Year's Eve. My flight was supposed to leave at 11AM, but the Bay Area was having a really bad rain storm that was delaying all the flights. I had some tentative New Year's Plans, but nothing I would have been heartbroken over, if I had missed them. I just hate flying back East since you lose so much time and it's so late by the time you get back.

I thought I was never gonna get out of the airport. United kept delaying and delaying my flight. Every hour, it seemed that the gate agent was making another delay announcement. The other issue was that since SFO was in scheduling chaos, many flights, including mine, couldn't be properly staffed because flight attendants were stuck in the air or delayed getting to their next flight. I passed my time listening to my iPod, talking on the phone, and munching on some See's chocolates that I had bought at the airport stand originally as a gift, but I figured my friend wouldn't mind if I had some, or in my case, all of them.

Eventually, at around 4PM, PST, it was time to board. Our scheduled time of arrival in New York was 11:30PM, EST. But I knew there was no way I'd make it to any New Year's Party in time for the new year, unless there was a party at JFK. I could hear this guy who was still holding out hope and telling his friends on the phone that he was going to jump in a cab as soon as he got out of baggage claim and head all the way to Brooklyn from JFK just in time to see the ball drop on TV. I didn't really care though. I've never been a big New Year's person anyway.

The flight was completely full. Every seat on board was occupied since so many people were flying stand-by on my flight. After takeoff, the flight was pretty uneventful. The poor flight attendants were working really hard to keep everyone happy because they were understaffed too. After the meals and drinks were served (or "beverages" which I've always thought as a really gay word), we settled into our seats and watched the movie or slept.

A few hours later, a few minutes before 10PM, EST, one of the flight attendants made an announcement. Because there was very little chance that anybody on the flight would be able to celebrate New Years outside of the airport, the flight crew was going to celebrate with us. Since we were still in the air and wouldn't land till just before midnight, EST, we were going to "celebrate" New Year's in Santiago, Chile, where it was about to turn midnight. The crew started passing out champagne, and then the flight attendant said, "Ok, get ready to count down." We all counted down "10, 9, 8,.....Happy New Year!" and toasted each other.

It was so cute and a surprisingly nice way to spend New Year's Eve.