There will be no more airports for me. No, I have decided to pursue a less jet-setter attitude and be one with the common folk who take buses on long trips for the simple reason that I endured yet another hellish dayat an airport.

Remember how I left at 5:30 yesterday morning to get on a flight that would get me home around 2pm? Funny how I walked in the door of my house just past 1 o'clock this morning. Oh, how I giggle.

I was at the airport in Toronto by 6am only to encounter a lineup to check in remniscent of an anaconda or other large and intimidating reptile with snake-like qualities. I knew it would take at last 2 hours to get through and my flight left two hours from then. Worried? I should think so. Apparently everyone wanted to get out of Canada and get someplace warm for the week. Lots of people going on cruises and to Mexico. Luckily, they started calling out flight numbers and I was moved to a shorter line. There was no wait to clear customs, so at this point I thought "yay!". Then I got to my gate, found out the plane was delayed, weight restricted, and overbooked.

They asked for 19 people to volunteer to step off. 19? On a good day you get about 3 or 4. There were 7 volunteers. So they boarded the plane and cut off when they reached their limit. Which happened to be the person right in front of me. I then spent 2 hours at the desk trying ot get rebooked only for the agents to take a long time to get people who would miss their cruise into hotels. Then the printer broke. Then I got my new ticket for a flight that didn't leave until 4. I then had a 6-7 hour layover in Toronto.

I hate layovers. And 7 hours? No happy Nikki. I didn't leave b/c the line to get back ito the airport would have been too long. So I got breakfast, lunch, and watched movies on my laptop.

I finally get out of Toronto, late, and get to Dallas. My flight out of there was delayed by an hour, not leaving until 10:15- which gave me almost 4 hours to kill. I had a good dinner with this most excellent brownie concoction for desert. Then watched more stuff on the computer.

Our gate changes, the plane arrives at 10pm, we get on, are told it's a 35 minute flight to Arkansas, then spend an hour on the tarmas waiting to get de-iced. We take off at 11:05, according to the guy seated behind me. I spend the flight talking to this guy beside me about the differences in Canada, the USA, and Toronto compared to everything. He asked me what Canada's national dish is- what kind of food we eat. I have no idea- seafood on the coasts? Anybody have any ideas?

We land in Arkansas around 11:50, I think, and we wait for my luggage. We wait. I walk outside to see mom and lots of snow, ice, and blsitering winds. I thought the south was supposed to be warm. Apparently not.

The luggage carousel breaks. They fix it. I hope my luggage made it through after changing flights several times.

My bags come out, broken off handles on all of them. I am slightly/majorly pissed off.

We drive home.

I go to bed.

I wake up at noon today.

Oh, I love vacations....