Kakinoki James

Woke up early again so we could get to Dulles Airport by 8:30 AM. My uncle again was nice enough to take me. Other than the landing, the flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul was uneventful. We all got onto our plane for the international flight, North West flight 79. There were several delays, a late passenger, some sort of hatch needed to be closed, etc. The whole time we were waiting there was no AC. Got really hot inside the plane. Finally we got onto the runway. I looked out of the window and saw some clear liquid pouring off the right wing. Guess I wasn’t the only one that noticed. The plane turned around and pulled back into the same gate we left out of. The liquid that was pouring out of the wing was fuel. We were told that repairs should take 45 mins. After 45 mins the only thing that had been done was kitty litter being poured on the 30 foot wide puddle of fuel under the wing. The pilot came on the intercom again and advised us that we would getting off the plane and the flight should take place at 8 AM the next morning. I think we spent about 3 hours on the plane.

The plane emptied. The JETS all went to a different line than everyone else. Was a lot of chaos at first. I watched everyone stressing out and started laughing. We were all broken into groups of rough 10 people, given a paper to use to get dinner, and a voucher for a super shuttle to a hotel. My group had a nice dinner at the airport and then caught the shuttle to the hotel. Along the way we agreed to a group name that I came up with. Group Red Eye. I was the only one in the group that didn’t have a partner to room with. I had one earlier at the airport, but he broke away to start another group. I could have gotten into his group, but I was hesitant to leave the group I was in because I was enjoying the company of a few pretty girls. I waited for an hour for every other group to arrive, trying to get a roommate. Didn’t happen. Turned out well for me because I ended up being the only one who got a room by themselves. I spent part of the time I waited watching a crazy black guy that kept waving yellow pom poms and saying stuff like “Party on Wayne!” I called home for 5 mins, e-mailed several people, went to my room, took a shower, and went to sleep. Many others went to the hotel bar and partied, but I was just too tired to do anything. I went to sleep at roughly 10:30 PM.