Well, the day to leave Croatia was finally here! After just over a week, some bumps along the way, it was an early start.

My flight left first, at 6:15am. Everything I’ve ever experienced has taught me to always arrive at the airport 2 hours early. That meant 4:15. That meant ~3:45 ride to the airport. Our airbnb host said she would drive us, provided we paid her a small sum, which we were happy to do. My mistake was we were actually much closer to the airport than I originally thought, so we got there before 4:00… man that’s early!

Upon arriving at the airport, we tried to check in, Celesta successfully, myself unsuccessfully. And because of the hour, there was no one at the airport working yet. So we had to wait around until 5:00 when the luggage check-in people started. I eventually was able to check in and go through security, where me and Celesta had to part ways – so sad!! It reminded me of the time in a Chicago airport where we split all those years ago, and while that time was so sad and sweet, this was hurried, with promises to text eachother throughout our travels home. Did that make me sad? Maybe a little… it was too bad we had to quickly hug outside security and part ways as we had two different doors to go through to our gates.

I got to my gate, and we boarded and everything was good! I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me, so that was a bonus! We landed in Zagreb (Croatia capital city) around 7am, and I was looking forward to a short layover – a couple hours – before boarding another flight to Toronto, and from there get to Calgary.

I hoped in vain..

Upon arriving in Zagreb, and passing through passport control and such, I checked the gate board to find my gate, to see a giant DELAYED posting next to my flight, followed by UNTIL 19:00.

 

 

That was 12 hours from the current time. What a nightmare.

This was the last thing I needed. I just about collapsed onto the floor and sob – I had such a crappy travel to croatia, a troubled trip back was not what I wanted. And to have a flight delayed 10 hours sucked (originally it was at 10am, now it is at 7pm). What was I going to do for all that time?!

If I had known to expect this, I might have done a little homework and gone into Zagreb to see some of the city for the day, and come back to the airport later in the evening. But right then I was rattled and stressed and upset, and wandering around a foreign city in that kind of mindset, especially by myself, probably wasn’t smart.

So instead, I spent maybe 30 minutes wandering around the tiny international wing of the airport, looking at all the posters and ads and such. Eventually I sat at an empty gate and watched some netflix. Netflix was going to get me through the next 12 hours. And honestly, that’s mostly what I did. After a few hours, I gave in and laid down across a bench and let my phone charge while I took a short nap. I didn’t think I would fall asleep, but I think staying up super late the night before, plus a very early start, and my anxious nerves with my new travel fiasco exhausted me, and I fell asleep for just under an hour.

In between Netflix episodes, I would get up and check the flight board, to see if anything changed, and wandered around the gates for a little bit. I didn’t nap again, just switched between Netflix, facebook, instagram, and my book. The suckish thing is that I was 8 hours ahead, so everyone at home was asleep – so I didn’t have anyone to chat with/vent to.

Around 3pm an announcement is made for people on my flight to go to one of the gates. A mad rush of people heads to the gate, including me, to find out what’s happening, and if we’ll be leaving early.

We weren’t.

Instead, a man gave us all food vouchers for dinner. Many people complained that they should get more money because they have all 3 meals in the airport with the delay, not just one. The poor airport guy looked so stressed – don’t shoot the messenger!

Regardless, it was a pretty large amount, and with only 2 shops to spend it in and 4 more hours to wait, I was pretty happy with it. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, so I was grateful for anything. The main cafeteria place looked really intimidating, so I sat off to the side to watch people ordering so I didn’t look like an idiot when I went for food. While I was sitting there, I did my regular routine of walking over to the board to check, and to my horror, my flight info had been updated again – delayed another 3 more hours. JUST WHEN I SAW THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL, THE UNIVERSE THROWS ME ANOTHER SUCKER PUNCH.

I was upset again. Over the last 9 hours or so, I had given up and accepted my fate. But seeing my flight delayed three more hours broke me. I started tearing up standing in front of the board. Thankfully I’m not a loud crier, so I don’t think anyone noticed. But it took me several minutes at the board to compose myself before I could walk back down the hall to the bench I had camped out at.

I threw myself down in utter disappointment, cursing my luck and the airport gods everywhere. I was Netflixed out, I was sore, I was tired, I was hungry, and getting pretty sick of the small airport wing. I was almost starting to feel a little claustrophobic in the space, and just wanted to go home! I honestly quietly cried for a few more minutes, before grabbing my stuff and sitting closer to the cafeteria, so I could decide what I wanted to eat. If I had another 6 hours to spend, I was ordering whatever I wanted.

The food voucher had to be used all in one go, so I got a full entree – a burger with sweet potato fries, 2 drinks, and 2 desserts, and I still had a bunch of money on my voucher left. But there wasn’t really anything I wanted, and didn’t want to hold up the line behind me, so I just accepted it and let the lady keep my voucher. Everything was fine – the cheesecake was weird, but the icecream was good. I sat at a cafeteria table for an hour or so, eating and watching a movie. Eventually I made my way back into the thoroughfare.

Because I’m an anxious person, I have to sit close to a board, and the closer it came to my flight time, the more antsy I got, and decided to go wait at the gate itself.

The gate was tiny, and it was packed. People were sitting and lying on the floor waiting, many of whom I recognized from wandering around all day. Some were on my early flight from Dubrovnik, so they knew how I felt.

Our boarding time ended up being delayed about 30 minutes, which made my anxiety so bad I nearly threw up. But eventually we got on a bus to take us to the plane. Now, after 10, I’m in my window seat with my row to myself. We are in a MASSIVE plane, and I would say almost half of it was empty. The entire middle section it seemed was empty. People immediately started claiming rows to lay down to sleep on the long flight to toronto. I myself stayed where I was because 2 seats to myself was good enough for me.

We got served dinner, and the cabin was dimmed pretty quickly – I think the crew knew that people were frustrated and tired, and wanted to be left alone. So that was nice.

But, my anxious brain didn’t let me sleep the entire 9 hours. I was nervous because when I got to toronto, I had no idea how I was getting back to calgary, and I kept having flashbacks to waiting in line in Istanbul for 4 hours just to get a ticket, and I was too nervous. But I did feel better that I was on a Canadian airline, with people who share my first language, and going to a Canadian city that I was familiar with. Domestic travel seemed less scary.

So we landed in toronto at the local time of 2:05am. Brutal timing.

The hoard of people off the plane all swarmed around a bunch of airport staff, who were directing people to desks and gates to make new connections. A lady grabbed my arms and very aggressively asked me where I was trying to get to. She handed a bunch of paper with my name and pushed past me to the next person in the swarm. So I headed off down the hall with the other people – they all seemed more frantic than me. I guess a silver lining in everything is that I was used to being so delayed, so I was almost calm compared to the rest of them. My brain hurt, but I was walking calmly.

She had given me a food voucher, my boarding pass, and a flight voucher for my next flight with them. I tried to find my gate and kept running into locked hallways. My flight didn’t leave until 6:30, so I had time to kill. I found an empty luggage carousel, somewhat separated from the others by some partitions. In the space was an older woman on a bench, and a teen boy laying on the floor snoring.

I sat on a bench almost opposite the boy, but couldn’t lay out because the bench had arm rests in the middle. After trying to relax for about 20 minutes, I decided that if you can’t beat em, join em. I threw down my backpack and laid on the floor with my headphones in. I set a couple alarms just in case so I wouldn’t sleep through my flight, but I wasn’t anticipating to actually fall asleep – the floor was kinda dirty and uncomfortable, and I felt stressed. But I knocked out almost immediately and slept for a couple hours.

I woke up before my alarm, and set off to get to my gate. Surprisingly the sleeping boy ended up at security with me, and was on my flight – I wonder how long he had been in the airport before I got there?

I made it through security and got a classic Tims breakfast with my voucher before heading to my gate.

My flight back to calgary was fine – I didn’t sleep again. No one sat next to me again.

 

When I finally got into Calgary it was around 8:30, so I got to my parent’s home around 9:15. I ranted about my last 36 hours to my mom, and then went up to bed. At that time it was after 5pm Croatian time, and with only a few hours sleep on floors and benches over that time, I was smelly and exhausted.

I slept for several hours, waking up in the afternoon. My jetlag was pretty bad, but I got over it eventually.

And that concludes my Croatian adventure. Truly ‘never a dull moment’, as my website says. It was a rollercoaster, and I seem to have spent more time traveling than vacationing through that week. But it was still really fun and it was great to spend time with my old travel buddy again.

 

If you are ever looking to going to croatia, hit me up – I’ve got all the details!

Thanks for reading this series – let’s see what I get up to next?

Upcoming plans (hopefully they work out!) is Japan/Korea/Singapore next august. Cross your fingers that it works out!

 

emma.k