Air Cnada sucks in South America, too

We arrived at the airport in Buenos Airies, three hours ahead of time, as we were supposed to, but of course the Air Canada ticket agents were not at their posts and by the time they did arrive all 300 passengers were lined up thruout the airport waiting. We were lucky enough to be the 7th in line because Sean is militant about time, but there were elderly people and mothers with babies who were not so fortunate. They were well down the line. We knew then that the flight would be late because there was no way that the agents could process that many people in an hour and a half. And they certainly were not in a hurry. I had already reconciled myself to the fact that we would miss our connection in Toronto and that I would miss seeing Zack before he returned to school. We did eventually get off the ground and landed safely in Santiago. It was a beautiful flight. We disembarked at the airport there and re boarded an hour later, only to sit on the runway for 3 hours while mechanics tried to fix the pressurization. At 11:00 they finally decided that it needed a new part that they didn't have in stock here so the flight would be canceled. Of course they did not offer us a drink or a cookie in all that time and there were screeching babies and women with perfume overload just to add to the aggravation. Once they did decide to cancel, we had to get off and go thru immigration and customs because there are no exceptions to the rules here. That was hell! There is a reciprocity fee here of $120US per person just to get into the country. They told me I could go on thru, but that Sean would have to line up to pay it. It took awhile, but I finally found someone (he was kind of hot, too) who could speak English and explain that the reason that I did not have to pay it was because I paid it two years ago and it is good for the lifetime of your passport. I sat down to wait for Sean who was at the very end of the 300 person lineup. You would think there would be some kind of pardon for passengers stranded due to no fault of their own, or that Air Canada would have taken care of it, but no. I was dying of thirst but there was nowhere to buy a drink and I couldn't if I wanted to because I had no Chilean pesos. I found a money exchange and changed $20 which in retrospect was a mistake because we are here for the day with no money to do anything. The hot guy saw me sitting and waiting for Sean and he went and hauled him out of the lineup and brought him over and had his passport stamped and let us go thru. Still can't figure out why unless it was because we were the only people in the lineup not freaking out. You really do get further with honey than vinegar. From there it got worse because nobody knew where we were going or how we were to get there and there is very little English spoken here. The screeching babies only added to the chaos. When we did get thru we were told there would be an Air Canada agent waiting outside to tell us where we should go. HA! Nobody. Sean stayed with the baggage while I went looking for her. I noticed a drink machine and stopped because I was so thirsty, only to find the ticket agent hiding in a nook nearby behind the stairs. She was wearing those ridiculous spike heeled shoes so her back and legs were probably killing her but I had little sympathy.... I wanted to impale here on the freaking heels! Finally got to the hotel (The Raddison which was a bit of a consolation prize) only to find another lineup of other Air Canada stranded passengers waiting to check in. When we finally got into the room I went straight to the bar to get some water only to find it locked. Sean went to locate a key and was told that it was locked because Air Canada does not cover that. We had to give them our credit card before they would open it. So guys.... Air Canada sucks everywhere, not just Atlantic Canada.

All that said, my father tells me that Toronto is stormed in anyway and I can think of a lot worse places to be stuck than sunny, scenic Santiago.

My email has been down for four days so I can't communicate thru it, but I can thru my blog, so feel free to post a comment. That remark is especially directed toward my children who I would love to hear from. Latest news is that we leave here 8:00 tonite, but I am not counting on anything.