It started off with the plane for New York City being an hour late taking off. No big deal.
So what if I got up at 5:30 am to get to the airport two hours before flight time? This is my “big adventure” so what if I have to sit around for three hours?
So we arrive fifty five minutes late into Kennedy Airport – 6 PM. No big deal.
Then it takes American Airlines a half hour to find a ground crew to get the plane into the gate so we can get off the plane – 6:30. Not a big deal but not a little deal either.
They are renovating the baggage area so there is only one carousel for all the planes. Okay. So we wait and we wait and we wait. After an hour (7:30) about a hundred of us descend on the single person manning the lost bag counter. We scare him half to death so he digs up his supervisor. She arrives and hears the story and disappears in the bowels of the baggage area never to be seen again. After the poor guy calls his supervisor on the radio, he assures us that our baggage is there and will be delivered in a minute or two.
An hour later (8:30 pm), after a failed trip to the check in counter (closed) the bags start to arrive. The first dozen bags are soaked through. Evidently it has been raining for the two hours we have been waiting for our bags. My bag finally arrives, but at least it is dry.
Now to get to the hotel. Easy. Get the Airtrain to the subway, get off at 79th street and three blocks to the hotel. Just $7.00.
I get on the airtrain, go to the last exit then pay my $7 and get on the subway to take the “A” train (I remember the song and try to hum it to myself but I don’t remember it that well) into the city. I grab a subway map and realize that the “A” train doesn’t stop at 79th and I need to change trains to the “1″ train. The map shows that I can make this change at Penn Station so I get off there and spend a half hour finding that the “1″ train doesn’t stop there. Back on the “A” train and off again at 59th street (Feelin’ Groovy?). The on the “1″ train and off at 79th street. I rise out ot the subway to find that any sense of direction I may have ever had is gone. But I am a rational person (even if it is now just a few minutes before 10pm). I know that the subway was headed north, so if I face the direction that the subway was going west must be to my left. Off I head to realize eight blocks later (with my briefcase, computer bag and super economy, Costco sized bag) that I went in the wrong direction. As I turn around, the doorman sees me and asks if I’m lost. Absolutely not. I’m a guy and we never get lost (or at least never admit it.) I tell him where I’m going and he agrees that I am (now) heading in the right direction but it is too farto walk.
“I need the exercise” I tell him and off I go looking like a pack mule dragging a trailer behind me. At 10:30 I make it to the hotel, get settled in and realize I’ve not had anything to eat since the omelette (???) on the plane. Stash the bags into my room and off to find a restaurant that is open at 11 PM. I forgot – this is New York. Everything’s open. Get a great hamburger (9 ounces with all the trimmings) it is too big to get into my mouth but I manage anyway. $6.50. Well worth it. Back to my room. It’s now close to midnight and my first day is just about over – except that it is only 9PM back home so I watch TV for an hour.
More later
Don’t give up – the story gets better/
