What you REALLY should know about traveling

After what seemed to be much longer than the expected 3-hour flight from Dublin, the pilot said we'd have to make an emergency landing. The severe weather conditions forced us to stop in the cargo airport of Ostend, north of Belgium. The extreme cold and strong winds were freezing the aircraft's wings making flying risky.
After 3 days stranded in Dublin Airport I had got used to friendly voices announcing disruptive messages, with my flight to Rome being constantly cancelled and rescheduled due to the intense snowfalls afflicting Ireland in mid-December. The whole Europe was struggling.
I was due home the 22nd, which made me confident about my chances of making it. I didn't even mind being stranded in the airport, it was fun and through hardship you really get to know the people around you, bonds are stronger and the community feeling arising in those hours helps you coping with it. But when I finally took off, direction Rome with a stop-over in Charleroi, I really thought I had made it. I was due home the day before Christmas eve after months without meeting my friends and family.
But I was wrong.
So here I am, fighting against fierce winds that made the 300mt long walk between the plane and the building feel like an eternity. A 4-hour bus ride then took me to Charleroi's airport, near Brussels. It was pitch dark and I slept through it, a regenerating nap before what would be an endless night. I just didn't know it yet.
The bus arrived in Charleroi just after midnight and the sight wasn't conforting. The small airport hall was flooded with stranded people, from everywhere, their faces stressed and hopeless. It hadn't stop snowing for hours. My flight to Rome was scheduled for the morning, 8am. With hardly any space for standing sleeping was not an option. I waited. And waited. Random encounters made the time lighter and the wait quicker. Many stories and destinies cross in these strange but rich moments.
I was wrecked. And frozen. It was Christmas Eve.
At 6am the snow still hadn't stopped falling and again a friendly voice announced that no flight would take off until the 26th. I was officially forced to spend Christmas in Belgium, on my own. I decided I would go to Brussels and on my way to the bus I met Lorraine, from Nantes but studying in the belgian capitol. She couldn't make it to Marocco. She brought me at her place, offered me a piping hot coffee and a place where to sleep. Christmas in Brussels didn't sound that bad anymore.