From Moscow to Boston

Our trip was almost over and we headed to the airport. A huge storm from the night before left huge trees down and major damage to the city.
We got to the check in for Aeroflot early…one of the first in line. We watched as they tagged our bags, sent one on its’ way and then started to mumble “problema”. From what we could tell, John’s reservation had been cancelled, mine was still in the computer- and the flight was full. The clerk left to pull our bags back and took off the baggage tags. At this point, we were desperate. We pleaded with another woman (who looked like a supervisor) to help us and she reactivated John’s reservation and got us on the plane.
We finally made it onto the plane - a full 767 – only to hear the announcement from the pilot that “the airport has no power and the plane can’t leave” so we sat on the plane for an hour and a half before it finally takes off.
The drink cart came by and the rows of men across from us ordered beer, wine and tomato juice—then pulled out liters of vodka and started toasting each other.
Note- the first round of drinks is complementary—after that, you have to buy them from duty free.
The movie features on the plane were an old Rock Hudson, Claudia Cardinale black and white film from the 60’s followed by old Russian black and white cartoons.
5 hours into the flight and the guys across from us were into their 2nd vodka bottle. They were getting melancholy, kissing and hugging each other, crying…(they were also mesmerized by the cartoons…)
They latched onto an American couple who had just adopted 2 Russian children. The mother left one of them with the girl across the aisle and the father joined the Russians for shots of vodka.
Finally we landed at JFK…not our favorite airport, but it’s home. We figured it was clear sailing until we got to United and found that, although we had reservations, we had no seat assignments and the flight was overbooked. We threw a fit and finally got seats on the plane only to find that they couldn’t get clearance in Boston because of fog. So we sat and sat and sat and tried to figure out if we should grab our bags and head to LaGuardia. We finally got a window for take-off and the pilot and crew missed it so it was back to the terminal and off the plane and another ½ hour wait until they shoved us back on the plane and finally took off. It was a really interesting landing but we were home…. no luggage…but home….