SFO - Chicago flight expirience

Well... I got a newly acquired taste for life, realized that I am yet to find my G-d, and lost quit a few of my nerve cells.

My pre-MBA vacation has (or had) the following itinerary:
Malaga, Spain July 19- July 26
Moscow July 26 - July 29
Piter July 29 - August 3
Budapest August 3 - August 5
Montenegro/Croatia August 5 - August 13

July 17th was my last workday at the office and was sad, but rather uneventful - just the way I wanted it to be (well, except for maybe unclosed books for June portion). On the eraly morning of July 18th I was to head to Spain and start living my MBA life. Since my trip was to have numerous destination, I tighly packed my red 1/2 my hight suitcase and happily headed towards SFO at 8am. I had a long way ahead of me - 2 plane changes to get me to Malaga when I would meet my friend Ol'ka, who was flying in from St Petersburg.

My first flight San Fran - Chicago was to depart on time. All passengers boarded the plane, but then some "minor technical difficulty" came up and we were sitting on the ground for extra 30 mins "addressing the issue". We took off a bit behind the schedule, but on target to land safely and on-time. About an hour into our flight the airplane made some funky noises, which might not even be related to what happenned next. We were flying above some mountains when the airplane started quickly loosing altitude. As my ears started popping and it became very hot in the plane, I thought we were crashing. Not the best feeling in the world. Shortly, the announcement followed: "we have some minor technical issues in the cockpit here and will have to divert to Salk Lake City airport for precautionary landing". HOLLY SMOKES! I am only 28 and I do not want to die on my first day of pre-MBA life! I mean, I just don't want to crash at all!!! My neightbor was amazing! He was calming me down, chatting with me and trying to get my mind of the fact that me might be crashng as his hands were violetly shaking when he was passing his glass to a flight attendant.

In about 10 mins another announcement aired: "We lost our ability to pressurize the cabin - please prepare for landing". Somehow it sounded much scarier on the plane than when I am typing it up now. By then the flight attendants were running around collecting everything they had in sight and making everyone get ready for landing. Passengers with eyes wide open were sweating and looked very worried. Maybe I looked a bit more worried than others, but one of the flight attendants asked me if I am scared. I told her that I was very scared - isn't she. She said she was not scared, and yes, we were having a technical difficulty, but that if it would be emergency, she owuld be preparing us differently. That was the best piece of news! Thank you, dear flight attendant!!!

30 mins after the sudden drop in altitude and when the salon air was getting pretty thin and damn hot, we landed in SLC. They let us off the plane and asked to stay in the gate area. It was announced that SLC airport is not used to getting aircrafts that large and that they have no way of unloading our luggage off the plane. 2+ hours after the landing it was announced that the plane will have ot be chartered to get fixed and that passengers need to make arrangements for reaching their final destinations. Suitcases? Bah-bye red 1/2 my hight tightly packed friend!

In ~2 hours I managed to book a Delta NYC-bound flight that was to land at 11:31pm in JFK. I had to overcome some routine Delta/American ticket swap and 20 mins befor ethe take-off I finally got my boarding pass to fly to NYC. My beloved in-laws live in NYC and were happy to see me. Minor problem was that when they picked me up there car was not just low on gas, I think it was running on vapor... After a 75-minute traffic jam on the way out of the airport we made it to a gas station and so far it was the last of my misfortunes...

I am leaving for JFK in 20 mins and will hop on a plane to Madrid and then Malaga where I will land exactly 24 hours later than originally intended. My friend from Russia is already at our hotel, which she was nto deeply impressed with.

All in all, I am happy to be alive and hopefull about my next flights.
When I thought I was crashing, I was thinking that I enjoyed every moment of my life, except for the flight 1612 that was bound for Chicago and landed in SLC; I would like you to know that too. Life is beautiful!

Love,
Natalie/Natasha