I remember the winter of 2022, my first solo trip after my escape from my failed marriage! You know that year when all the flights back from Costa Rica were stranded for weeks. How I wished I could be part of that cohort and spend more than just one week in that paradise. The funniest thing was when I started noticing lots of people wearing the same type of clothing in my resort. I said to myself, maybe they were part of a team-building event or something.

One evening, I took my courage by the hand and ventured into one of the stores on the hotel property. I opened the door, and one of the cashiers innocently asked me: "Are you here to buy some clothes?" I had no idea what she was asking, so I innocently admitted: "Well, yes, I would like to see some t-shirts and beach towels since I am a collector." The next question caught me off guard. "Sure, no problem. Do you have a voucher from Sunwing?" Surprised, I asked: "No! Should I?" Then it hit me! There was no team-building event in this resort. All the people who were dressed identically were the ones from Toronto who arrived here ... without clothes and had been stranded for more than two weeks due to a luggage mishap with Sunwing Airlines. One of the luggage belts serving Sunwing Airlines stopped working, and all the baggage ended up anywhere but not in the plane.

The only inconvenience I had flying from Edmonton was a day delay as our flight was rerouted from 25 to 26 December due to the lack of flying attendants. That became one of the funniest memories of my life as a solo adventurer. It all started at 5 am. Everybody was half asleep, but we followed the motions. Elite class, aka the fake business class, got priority in the ticketing area. Then, we start to trickle through multiple obstacles, like well-behaved sheep. At the same time, people from the previous day were already delayed and were hoping to fly to the Dominican Republic. Little did we know that Punta Canta would bump Costa Rica into second place if there was a skeleton crew. I had like 3 hours to kill after security. So, I patiently started to fantasize about my beloved Costa. This trip was on my 'F-u-c-k-it list, a list of things I wanted to do before I turned 50, for 5 years now. And here I was, so close to my dream and trying to escape the last memories of Covid.

So, the hour of departure arrived... and left with us still in the airport. And then it started... the game of 'in an hour, we fly. ' The airline kept promising that we would be airborne in an hour, and it ran like that until 3 pm when we finally realized that we were not going anywhere except home. And it only was Christmas, right? I just told my cats that I would see them in the week, so I refused to go home and confused them, so I opted for a voucher for a hotel in Nisku. For the food section ... I had a feast on Starbucks "junkies," and for any delayed hour, the airline provided us with 20-dollar vouchers for food. We were even ready to fly without flight attendants as we joked that we could serve our drinks if pilots were in charge of the plane. But you know, safety protocols were not allowing flights without a complete crew. Later, we found out that our crew had been borrowed by the Punta Cana guys. The next day, we hijacked Cancun and took their crew. So yeah, it was a trip that I will never forget, but more details in the next chapter of my life.