Caught in the airport 'vortex'

Well sports fans, for the first time I am dealing with a huge travel delay getting home from a business trip. I finished my work day at around noon Wednesday and had to kill a few hours waiting for my first flight to depart at 5:20pm. Well, it's amazing what a little weather can do. When it snows in Toronto, they call in the Army (heh..... sorry, I couldn't help that dig). When a thunderstorm comes through, they shut down the airport. That wasn't a dig. The problem is that once the flights resume, it takes forever to resume normal operations again. I never did leave Kingston until 10:30pm. Once we landed in Toronto, we still had to wait for our turn to park at a gate. The airport was bedlam - even as late as midnight. I won't be finishing my trip until Thursday morning, by which time I'll have been up 29 hours. I write this post at 12:45am from Terminal 1 at Pearson International Airport in Toronto. I am not posting it live because......... Pearson International Airport - the largest in Canada - does not have Internet access. Can you believe that? If you listen very carefully - you can hear the sound of Pearson sucking. Oh - but they have a Tim Horton's open 24 hours a day..... yes they do. At 2:00am, airport security booted us all out of the secure area (where the gates are) for some stupid reason. We were told we could come back (through security) after 4:00am. The area outside of security was perfect for sleeping. Bright lights, a blaring P.A. system, the smell of fresh wax in the air, hard chairs...... good times. If you did manage to get some shut-eye, the test of the fire alarm system made sure that didn't last too long.

Well, at least now I can say I spent the night in an airport. But I'll never do that again.