Destination.... Chicago?

Today was the day I have been waiting for since I landed back in America last June. Today I was going back to Germany. Or so I thought. This year, I am going with my friends from college, Katie and Chris. We all met at the air port. No problem. We checked our luggage. No problem. We got our tickets. Small problem: they mixed up our seats and my vegetarian meal. They resolved that, thank goodness. We got on the plane and waited for the clear. Big problem: the flaps weren’t floppy and they had to repair them. Two hours later we were given the go ahead and took off. An hour or so later, we were in the air. HUGE PROBLEM: one of the motors quit and they were operating off a generator. They told us we would be returning to Chicago. We got back to O’Hare and needed to land. Biggest problem of all. See, since we had a full tank of fuel, we were overweight to land. So, as Chicago neared all I could see was the flashing lights of ambulances and fire trucks on either side of the runway “just as a precaution”. It was a hard landing. Hard as in you could feel the thud of the land and wondered if we’d stop before plowing through the airport. Hard as in this meant no Germany for me today. We rebooked for tomorrow and headed for my parents house for the night. So, I’m still in America, and not too happy about it.