In the air... Finally

Today has been quite a day.  This morning I woke up at 7, said goodbye to my brother before he left for school (oh yeah, I guess high school is still going, isn't it? It sure feels like summer to me.) and then finished packing those last few things that have to wait until the last minute.  We left at 8:10 for Chicago-Mom, Dad, Grandpa, and me.  Grandpa had a doctor's appointment at Loyola University that they were all going to after dropping me off.  He is going to be a test subject for a new surgery technique to replace a valve in his heart, but that's another story.  We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare, I got checked in, said my final goodbyes to everybody before heading through security.  Everything went quickly, and I was soon at the terminal waiting for the hour before the plane took off.  I could tell something was up when we were supposed to be boarding but a bunch of  airplane mechanics and personnel kept heading out to the plane while the rest of us sat and wondered what was going on.  Finally, whatever needed to be fixed was fixed, and we all boarded.  Everything seemed to be going smoothly until we undocked from the terminal.  It turns out the steering mechanism in the nose (or something like that.  I couldn't quite decipher what they said over the speakers) of the plane was not functioning properly.  They had fixed it, but then it stopped working when we had undocked again.  They redocked and reassessed the condition of the steering system, and decided that it would not be an easy fix.  Our flight was cancelled, so a plane full of disgruntled customers got back off the plane and hurried to the help desk to rebook their flights.
I was standing in a line that was moving slower than molasses for about twenty minutes, when I finally gave up on it and used the telephones in the help zone to rebook.  They had told us about the phones initially, but I wanted to talk to somebody in person. Eventually I got tired enough of not moving forward (two spots in twenty minutes, and 14 more to go) so I gave in and settled for the phone option.  Thankfully it was very fast and painless (I should have done that from the beginning), and soon I had been rebooked.  Instead of flying O'Hare to JFK in New York to Istanbul, I am now flying from O'Hare to Rome, and then on to Istanbul.  Unfortunately the new airline that I had been booked for was in the international terminal, so I had to exit the terminal I was in, hustle to terminal 5, and then figure out where I was supposed to check in (all while hoping I had actually understood everything correctly over the phone).  It didn't help that I thought I only had two hours to do all of this.  About halfway through the line to check in with the new airline (Alitalia - I'm flying Italian!) I realized that my watch was still an hour off, so I really had three hours.  This was about the time I finally got through to Mom's phone (she had turned it off while in the hospital since she wouldn't get service there anyway).  I felt a whole lot better, but still had to finish checking in and go through security.  I also had to check one of my bags that I had originally used as one of my two carry-ons.  It wasn't too big, apparently it was too heavy, so I was quickly trying to transfer things between my bags at the check-in counter.  I'm praying that everything will arrive safely and won't be lost.  It is a little unnerving to suddenly have to check a bag that I was planning on carrying with me, but I'm sure everything will work out.
The second time through security was a little longer and a little more rough, but overall a fairly painless procedure.  I found my terminal, and then set out to find food because I was hungry.  That's when I realized that the international terminal at O'Hare has essentially no restaurants, and the food in the convenience shops are way overpriced.  It's a shame, there's not a whole lot you can do, and I needed some good food before taking off.  I finally got situated and felt like I could take a breath about 40 minutes before our departure time.  It helped that I had people who love me texting me through this whole ordeal, keeping me sane.  Looking back on it all it doesn't seem too bad, but in the midst of this all I was not enjoying it one bit.  I'm okay now, I'm in the air, writing this as we are flying over Canada (the monitor says we are over Montreal- and 37,000 feet in the air, of course!).  Rome is just over 4100 miles away and we are set to arrive just a little past 8 am.  I won't have wifi at least until we land, maybe not even until I get a hotel in Istanbul, so by the time this is posted I will have at least made it as far as Rome.  For now I'm just thankful to finally be in the air, and I'm trusting God that everything will work out.  Now for that reading I am supposed to be working through for our class...