We grabbed our passports and walked away from the counter looking like a nuclear war had just started. There were three other students from our flight in line behind us. Or rather, one girl and her two friends who were seeing her off. It was Vika with her boyfriend and friend, a girl from Buryatia who was going on the same program as us, very kind and the calmest of our trio. They called us over and asked what happened. We explained and said that she had also missed this flight. Now there were five of us. But three of us needed to fly out. Finding out that AirFrance was in Terminal 4, we rushed there to figure out what was going on. So, we all went to Terminal 4 with all our bags in a crowd. Barely making it there, we couldn't find the person we needed. Polinka, the most active one, found some manager and we started pouring out what happened. He probably didn't understand much from our rapid-fire speech from both sides, but he got the general idea and took us to CustomerService. Now we were explaining the whole situation again to someone else, after which we were told that we were in the wrong place. That we had to sort everything out with Delta. And they sent us back. They said to go to a supervisor. We were losing it. But there was nothing to do, we had to go back to Terminal 3. To make it faster, we left the bags with Vika's boyfriend and friend, and rushed into the "battle" empty-handed. We arrived. Found the supervisor. The guy wasn't American, but some Arab or Indian guy. We explained the situation to him again. His reaction:

• And where are your suitcases??

We:

• We left them in another terminal...

He:

• Well, I would have put you on the flight quickly, but you don't even have your suitcases here!

We froze. At that moment our plane had already left and he clearly wouldn't have put us on the same flight. That's exactly what Polina asked:

• Okay, we'll bring the suitcases, but what exactly will you do after that?? How will you put us on the plane?? What is the next step??

I whispered to her in Russian:

• Pol, what difference does it make to us how he does it? Let's go get the suitcases.

The supervisor said that if we didn't bring the suitcases in exactly 10 minutes, nothing would work. We ran back to Terminal 4. We grabbed the bags and rushed back with them. On the way, we were just bursting with laughter!! Instead of crying and sitting on the floor right there, we were laughing like crazy. We ran back to Terminal 3, all sweaty. We found that supervisor, and he says:

• Well, your plane has already left!

I couldn't take it anymore and said to him in a nervous voice:

• Isn't that what we were telling you 10 minutes ago????

He looked embarrassed and said to go to another supervisor. How many more supervisors can they send us to?? The next supervisor turned out to be an African-American woman. She is someone I will never forget! After waiting in line for an "appointment" with her, we explained what happened for the hundredth time. She was a machine, not a human. She took our tickets and sat there looking at something on the computer. We stared at her with six eyes. Her phone rang, a worker approached with a problem, she answered her, then another one came up and said someone wasn't being let through without a liquid box, and she started looking for a box. We waited. We watched everything like a circus. In the end, she said the phrase we had already heard and which made us sick:

• Well, you have AirFrance tickets! You need to go to Terminal 4.

We girls stood our ground. We wouldn't leave until something was clarified. We stood like a wall. Seeing that we didn't want to leave, she said she would call AirFrance herself. She picked up the receiver, dialed a number, put the receiver on her shoulder, pressed it with her ear and ....that was it. And she sat there looking at something on the computer. We girls were joking, thinking she was probably on Facebook, pretending to be busy. I told the girls that if the line was busy, you should at least redial the number, but she just sat there doing nothing. Then someone distracted her again. Apparently, Polinka's patience ran out first and she said to her:

• Maybe you can finish with us first???

She:

• That's what I'm doing, since you don't want to go to AirFrance yourselves.

In the end, I convinced the girls to go and pressure AirFrance, otherwise we wouldn't get seats on another flight. And again AirTrain, heavy bags, elevators and we are in Terminal 4. By that time, several hours had passed, it had already gotten dark and a strong storm had started in New York. To be honest, I was even glad that we didn't get on that plane, because it flew right into the rain.

At AirFrance, we were met without enthusiasm, we were already annoying everyone there. One female operator we approached looked at the computer and said that we had the cheapest tickets and that we couldn't change them. We, taught by life in America, perfectly understand that if we admit that we missed the flight through our own fault, the airline is not obliged to provide us with seats. Therefore, we convinced everyone that we were late solely through THEIR fault. But that's how it was! So that they would feel guilty. It seems we were succeeding. In the end, we were told that there were no upcoming flights for the whole week! This woman gave us the number of another Customer Service so that we could call there and ask if they had tickets. If not, they couldn't help. We called. No tickets until the beginning of October!! That's the next two weeks! I'm not even talking about the fact that on October 1st we will automatically turn into illegals, as our visas expire. We are sitting on the floor with all our bags. I hung up and sat thinking about life: "This is my sign that I've been waiting for all 4 months, I need to stay in America, I'll buy a ticket back to Chicago now, and we'll see." I shared these thoughts with the girls. Polina:

• Yeah? That's a sign for you. But what do we have to do with it? I'm not planning on staying in America yet.

I:

• Well, you were sent to me for support, - I laughed at the stupidity of my theory myself.

Vika, who initially also rejected all these signs, having already suffered for 6 hours with these tickets and showdowns, declared:

• Listen, girls, maybe this is a sign for me too that I need to stay?

Polinka looked at us sarcastically and said:

• You do what you want, but I'm going home.

In general, of course, we fought to the last for a place....no, not under the sun, but just in economy class on a plane flying to Russia. Polina kept sitting on the phone, calling all the services in search of tickets, and I floated up to that woman again and with a tortured look and an absolutely calm voice said:

• There are no tickets until October. And our visa is expiring and we have no one in New York. We need to fly out today. Maybe someone else will miss the plane and we can take their place?

The operator looked at me with pity and says:

• Wait, I'll go to the boss again.

She was gone for about 10 minutes. I stood alone at the counter and waited. She came out smiling quite a bit and said that a plane would be flying soon and it seems the boss allowed us to be put on it. Come by 9 PM, we'll tell you what and how. I was happy, of course, but still nothing was known yet. We had nothing left to do but sit and wait. We went in a crowd to eat pizza at a cafe and drink coffee, because we hadn't eaten so much by that time, but we were nervous a lot. In general, food was just necessary for us. So, having sat and chatted over dinner, we finally waited until 9 o'clock and ran to find out about the plane. And...they gave us tickets!!! All three of us!! We were beside ourselves with happiness! We checked our luggage, went through security. For the first time, I was so happy that I was flying homeJ) But we were told that the plane was slightly delayed. It's okay!! The main thing is that we have tickets! The airline gave us food vouchers for the flight delay. $24 each. We went and bought food, drinks. We ate, drank, satisfied. Then we went to Duty Free to buy alcohol, perfume. I bought Hennesy cognac and two bottles of Baileys liqueur and perfume. Everything is 2 times cheaper. Vika didn't go with us, Polya and I were happily spinning around the department, chatting and rejoicing that we would be in Russia any moment now. With huge and heavy bags, we left the store and headed to where Vika and our bags were left. We walk, walk. And then our gaze stops at the flight board. We stared at it and stared for a minute, mouths open, no wonder, because we couldn't believe our eyes: the inscription opposite our flight Delayed changed to Cancelled....