The worst travelling experience of my life

(Don't let yourself be fooled by the image I choose for the top right corner, the plane didn't crash and nobody died I just thought it would be funny to put a picture of a plane crash to really demonstrate how catastrophic and miserable my experience was but it would probably be really insensitive to use a photo of a real plane crash so the closest thing I could think of was a poster of the most iconic example of a movie where a plane crashes and everyone suffers because of it)

Travelling can be such a weird experience both magical and stressful, to me no matter how many airports I visit they always feel surreal with their overpriced food, abundance of strange stores (why do they always sell expensive jewerly?!) and complete lack of social rules (seriously you can do pretty much anything in an airport and nobody will care because everyone's way too busy worrying about their own stuff) and last year's summer I visited an airport thrice as surreal as usual and had the worst time of my life due to bad luck and professional incompetence

To add a bit of context July 2025 was the first time I travelled without my parents, I went to a summer camp in Canada for 3 weeks and it was hella fun! I'm probably gonna make a blog about it later so I'm not gonna go into too much detail about the really good time I had and instead focus on the horrible time I had on my way back, it's been a year since this happened so my memory is a bit hazy but I remember all the important details of my torment so I can pretty acurately share my suffering with y'all so that everytime you are annoyed about your plane not taking off you can remember me and feel a bit less alone in the "fucked over by the travelling industry" club

I woke up early in the morning at around 7:00 a.m. on a sunday feeling bittersweet knowing I had to go back home today, I had so much fun in my trip and would miss going out to do something fun every day with all the cool friends I met but all good things must come to an end and at least I could finally sleep in my own bed for tonight (or so I thought), I double checked that everything was packed in my luggage and I wasn't forgetting anything and after not noticing any of my possesions being left behind I said my goodbyes to this cozy room I would never see again and went to the common room as instructed after grabbing some breakfast from the cafeteria, I sat on one of the couches as I waited for the rest of the students to get here, I killed some time talking to one of my teachers who I really bonded with after he stuck with my friend group in an ammusement park and while we were chatting I noticed something, my suitcase wasn't locked, I had brought 2 padlocks and forgot them in my room, embarrased I ran back to my bedroom and grabbed the 2 forgotten locks before quickly returning to the common room, I was tired from running up to the 4th floor via the stairs and really embarrased about forgetting something so important but at least I remembered before we left so I'm not gonna say this was the beggining of the end but more of a bad omen or a warning of how much the rest of the day would suck, when I came back everyone had already arrived and we were just waiting for the bus that would take us to the airport, once the bus got there I calmly sat on a window seat put my headphones on and listened to some music during the trip because listening to dramatic music while looking out the window is better than drugs

So far nothing has gone terribly wrong yet, we check in our luggage and go to the deparure lounge, by this point it's around 2:00 p.m. or 3:00 p.m. (The airplane is supposed to depart at 4:30 p.m. and the flight lasted around 1 hour with 40 minutes meaning if this went right I would be at my home country today at around 7:00 pm.) I think? and I haven't eaten anything since breakfast so I was hungry as hell and started looking around for a fast food restaurant or a 7-Eleven or somewhere I could buy a cheap snack to satiate my hunger until I could eat a proper meal once I got home and got jumpscared by the absense of restaurant, what kind of airport isn't filled with restaurants?! but at the very least there was a Tim Hortons nearby, I've never a coffee guy but I got 2 croissaints which was better than nothing, maybe my hunger was starting to make me delirious but those were some of the best croissants I've ever tasted

Fast forward to once the plane actually gets here, I look for my seat and you can't even imagine how wide I smiled when I found out that I got a window seat!! (the best kind of seat), I sit down and wait for the plane to start up while listening to some tunes, 10 minutes pass and the plane shows no signs of taking off, whatever I can wait, then 20 minutes and now I'm starting to get annoyed, not worried yet just pissed off because god dammit my time is valuable and I'm bored of waiting, now it's been 40 minutes since I've got on this plane and it's still comfortably parked on the ground and there are no signs of life from the pilot or staff and now I'm actually worried, what could be taking them so long? 10 minutes later (AKA 50 minutes since I entered the plane) the pilot has a message for us and for a second there's a glint of hope that this piece of junk will finally start flying just for him to vaguely announce that they're having some issues and we might have to wait a little longer, exactly what I wanted to hear! (with all due sarcasm) what pissed me off the most is that they didn't even tell us what the problem was or how much longer we would need to wait, now that I've been on this stupid plane for over an hour my butt hurts and I'm desperate to get out of here and apparently an evil genie hears my thoughts because the pilot tells us to get out of the plane because they need to fix some issues, relunctanctly I walk back to the departure lounge which is even more uncomfortable than the plane and at this point I didn't care anymore and just wanted some rest, I opened my carry-on backpack to retrieve the hoodie I packed just in case so I could use it as a blanket, then I placed the backpack on the ground as an improvized (and not very comfortable) pillow and tried my best to sleep despite the bright lights and loud noises and with the world's most unfortunate timing THE SECOND I start to actually fall asleep through the pain some bastard tells us through the airport's speaker that our flight will be delayed for tomorrow and all passengers would have to spend the night at a nearby hotel paid by the airline

I was super disoriented from getting woken up so abruptly and didn't catch the full message but as far as I understood as a way to apologize for their incompetence the airline had gave us some points that we could exchange for stuff in the airport's stores, which reminded me that I hadn't eaten anything in almost 10 hours (yup, by this point it's 11:00 p.m. and the airplane was supposed to take of at 4:30 p.m.), me and my group desperately looked for anywhere we could buy some food because we were all starving and the only place that was still open was a fucking Starbucks WHICH DOESN'T SEEL FOOD, I desperately looked through the menu looking for any pastries that could cure my famine and was met with pure emptiness, I don't drink coffee so I had nothing to spend my points and had to just rot with jeaulousy seeing all my classmates enjoy their drinks while I left empty handed and just as I was about to leave an angel sent from heaven reminded me I left my hoodie behind and I almost had a heart attack when I realized I could have lost my favorite hoodie right then and there but thank god that didn't happen (seriously, it's a really cool hoodie, super comfortable black fabric with the Ghostbusters logo in the chest, it's a bit worn out but in a cool edgy way, I've never even seen Ghostbusters but it was a gift from my dad so I appreciate it 20% more, I also don't really own a lot of other hoodies because I live in a stupidly hot country so I don't have a reason to justify owning more)

After that we had to retrieve our luggage in the painfully slow process that's usually reserved for when you're already at your destination, then the airport took everyone to a hotel in one of their buses and I was so dang tired and just wanted to get to the hotel so I could sleep and with how badly I wanted this to be over that bus ride felt eternal but once we got there I couldn't automatically go to my room no matter how exhausted I was because our poor teacher had to explain to us what we were supposed to do, like who was sleeping on what room and that sort of stuff I was only half paying attention until I heard the horrible news that served as the final nail in the coffin of this already horrible day, we had to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to catch the next airplane tomorrow THREE IN THE FUCKING MORNING, keep in mind that by this point in the story it was past midnight meaning that I would only get 2 hours of sleep, there was no point in arguing so I accepted my fate and went to my assigned room

I didn't even bother changing my clothes, brushing my teeth or doing any part of my usual nightime routine I simply threw myself on the bed and fell asleep in record time because if I was only going to get 2 hours of peace I better make the best of them, luckily for me we were put in rooms of 2 and my roomate was actually a responsible guy that set up an alarm for 2:40 a.m. so we had time to get ready in the morning and all that jazz, once the alarm went off I woke up somewhat well rested (or as well rested as you can be after not eating a full meal for an entire day and sleeping for little more than 1 hour) and my clothes were really sweaty and gross so I decide to change into something less stinky and that's when I get my third "almost losing something important" heart attack of the trip (the first being with the padlocks and second being my favorite hoodie) because I kept all my socks in a platic bag that I couldn't find, I moved everything in my suitcase looking for it and was starting to lose my mind because I like collecting funky socks and if I didn't find that damm bag I would lose so much well spent money and most of my favorite pairs (including but not limited to: hammer sharks, the nightime sky, Kirby, my favorite brand of potato chips, etc...) luckily for me it was just inside of another zipper and I made a mess for no reason, amazing way to start the day >:( whatever I've been through worse so I change into some of my clean clothes and go to reception to wait for everyone else and me and my roomate were as far as I remember the first ones to get here, I was a little pissed off knowing that I could have gotten a few more valuable minutes of sleep but whatever I was grateful for having a roomie that actually knows what they're doing since it's better to be early than late so I sat down on the comfiest couch I could find and tried to find a way to entertain myself while I waited

And of course most people wouldn't get here on time because it was already 3:00 a.m. and some of us were at reception like the functional adults we weren't but most assholes were still in their rooms probably sleeping more peacefully than I ever could dream of doing to the point our teacher had to go drag them outside because we'd lose the plane if they didn't got here on time and while this was happening I got the brilliant idea that maybe I could finally buy some food here (because may I remind you of all the suffering my stomach went through yesterday) but aparently it was too early in the morning for anything at the hotel to be open, the restaurant was obviously closed which I already expected but even the little snacks they put near the entrance weren't for sale because of course they weren't, with my luck I don't know what I was expecting

We go back to the dreaded airport and do the same annoying stuff we had already done yesterday this time praying it will work, I get inside the plane and encounter one final disgrace before this absolute tragedy of a story was over, the seats got reshuffled and my beautiful window was replaced by a painful aisle on the middle row which could have been worse I guess since at least it wasn't a the middle seat but that didn't make the loss of that perfect seat hurt any less, I looked at all the lucky bastards sitting near the windows with resentment during the entirety of the flight, please god I went through all this suffering can't you at least reward me with a nice seat? but after little less than 2 hours I was finally in my home country and the torture was over, I reunited with my dad and we went to eat dinner at a cool restaurant inside the airport where I ordered a plate of spaghetti, the first time I ate here I could only finish half of the dish because the plate was HUGE but today I was a different man, I had never been more grateful for something in my life and I made sure to savor every last bit of this blessing