This week I had the opportunity to go to Boston for work. I was pretty excited about going because I had only been there one other time, and it was only to the airport.
When I told people I was going to Boston, I heard lots of great suggestions on where to go and what to see. And then I had to remind them that I was going for work. It is not often that I get to enjoy the cities were I visit for work.
My work travel starts Monday mornings at 4am to catch a 7am flight. I proceed directly from the airport to the client site and work until around 7pm. At which time, we go eat dinner and then I stumble back to the hotel in a sleep deprived haze. These short business trips are strictly business.
I get really excited when we get to stay in nice hotels. This one in Boston was beautiful. I wish I could have enjoyed it more, but was nice for those couple of hours when I wasn't sleeping.
I was scheduled to fly back home on Wednesday evening. But there were other plans in store for me. The weather was awful when we got to the airport, which is never a good sign. To make a long story short, the flight ended up being canceled, but this was after 2.5 hours of sitting on the tarmac. I had been very stressed out over the past two weeks and this added to my very long week. After we had sat on the tarmac for over 2 hours, we had to return to the gate and we left without any information and a flight number that no longer existed. It was like "good luck to you, suckers!". As I could feel the tears starting to form, I heard a man say "Hey Atlanta smoker." I turned around to see a man I had been talking to over a cigarette outside prior to going into the airport.
I didn't know that he was going to be the thing that saved me from my pending melt down. He befriended me and got me into the Crown room on his access. We shared crackers and the most welcomed, frosty cold, beer. We were there for about 30 mins when we heard our flight had been canceled. It was such a blessing that I was in the Crown room instead of out in the gate area with over 100 angry passengers lined up all trying to get on the earliest flight out.
Because of him, I ended up getting on the earliest flight the next morning and with a first class seat. Had I not met him, I would have experienced a very embarrassing melt down at Logan airport and probably wouldn't have gotten out of Boston until much later the next day. This was an older gentleman and never did I feel he was being flirty or suggestive. He was just a nice man, who saw me on the brink of pity crying, and reached out a hand of friendship. He restored my belief that there are decent people in this world.
The hotel that night wasn't as nice, but had a beautiful view. The night was stressful but could have been so much worse. And I enjoyed going to sleep with this view.
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