One of the most BIZARRE days of my life...

So, I went to Indiana this weekend. More on that another time. Yesterday was the most BIZARRE day. Major mistakes, celebrity sightings, and some of the weirdest coincidences I may have experienced ever in my life. Here's the story:

My friend dropped me off at the airport about 1.5 hours before my flight was scheduled to leave. I got up to the self check-in area, put in my info, and got an error: "You can only check in 24 hours before your flight." I was like, "Um, I'm leaving in an hour." After a couple more attempts, I asked a guy behind the counter who, after looking it up, determined I'd booked my flight for today by accident, instead of yesterday. Alarmed, I asked him if I could change it and in a not-so-nice voice, he said, "Well, it's $75 just to change the flight and then there's probably a booking fee if there's a difference in price." I left the counter and called Aaron, close to tears.

After a couple minutes on the phone I decided I did NOT want to stay in Indiana another day and got in line to see if I could change my ticket. While I was on the phone with him, I asked the lady behind the counter (a different person than the not-so-nice guy) if I could change my flight. She asked me if I wanted to pay for a confirmed seat or fly standby. I asked her if my chances on standby were good and then she immediately confirmed a seat for me without even charging me! When I asked how much it would cost to change my ticket, she responded there was no charge, handed me my ticket and I was on my way. Can you believe it? I GOT SO LUCKY! Or blessed, as my pastor would say I should say. :-)

Then, while I was walking through the airport, at one point I looked up and saw John C. McGinley from Scrubs walking through the Indianapolis airport. I stared hard and then determined it was actually him and not some look alike, promptly mentioning it to Aaron, who I was still on the phone with. Cool, huh?

I sat down to wait for my flight, still on the phone. Then they said, "the flight will be delayed 2 hours." Everyone in the crowd exclaimed in dissappointment. I told Aaron and started making arrangements for late pickup when, 5 minutes later they said, "Oh, it will only be delayed 20 minutes now." So that was awesome!

While I was on the phone with Aaron, relaying to him all this news, typical of airline travel, I said, "this is so weird. I feel like so many things just happened in my favor. That's 2 major things (first the ticket change, now the shorter delay)." I wondered at the time, if these good things (and well-timed coincidences) would come in threes. I wondered if there would be one more surprise yet for the evening.

I got on the plane early, since I was sitting in an exit row. I put my stuff down and went to the bathroom on the plane, then headed back to my seat where people were now sitting in the row next to me. I sat down, started getting out my knitting when the guy next to me politely commented about the extra room. When I responded politely back, the girl at the end of the row (the guy was between us), pops her head forward and says, "Hannah?"

Turns out, the ONLY person from my tiny high school in Muncie, Indiana who lives in the SF Bay area was flying back on the same flight with her husband and were sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME. What was more strange to me was that we had only very recently gotten back in touch. And, what are the chances we'd be back on the same weekend? Not a holiday weekend, just a random weekend. We found out later we had been on the same flight to Indiana on Thursday night, too. HOW BIZZARRE! So, we had 10 years to catch up on and it was really nice--definitely a good way to spend 4 hours. But, that just goes to show, strange, bizzare, even miraculous coincidences can happen and in threes. Personally, I think God may have made all that happen for some reason... sooooo... we'll see what that is I guess, in the future!