Even before we landed at JFK, there seemed to be some kind of cosmic conspiracy to keep us from getting to New York quickly. I know, the cosmos was just trying to build our anticipation, but enough already. Virgin America has wonderful in flight entertainment option s including a way that you can track your actual flight, so that was what I was doing as we approached New York. I popped up the nice Google map and saw our plane pointing East, taking dead aim at New York, but then a funny thing happened, the plan started pointing up (North) and then to the left, (Back West!) Along with the map, the display pops up altitude, airspeed and outside temperature (in case you were wanting to take a stroll on the wing at 30,000 feet, bring a coat…its a nippy 48 below zero and at 500 miles an hour the windchill might be severe).
For the next several minutes, the plane maneuvered through a series of complicated loops and turns that, according to the map, took us over much of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and quite possibly half the Eastern Seaboard. Finally the altitude started to reduce (the outside temperature started to creep up toward zero) and we seemed to get closer to something New Yorkish.
So, down through the clouds and onto solid ground again. We’re getting excited now and it helps that we are in row 5, so we figure that we’ll be some of the first ones off the plane (crafty thinking huh?), except that they don’t open the doors, and we wait, all of us on the plane flooded into the aisles or hunched over by the windows, waiting. Eventually the pilot came on and told us that one of our engines wouldn’t shut off so they couldn’t bring the jet way out to us. I could hear the engine whining in the background and had visions of some crazy cartoon jet spinning around on the tarmac with one engine blasting away…that didn’t happen by the way, we just sat there…waiting.
After about 20 minutes of this, the pilot came on and told us that they had managed to find the off switch and the door opened. We were released, New York here we come!
Not so fast dere bud!
New York wasn’t finished teasing us. We made it down to the baggage claim, only to be held outside the carousels by security guards who said that they were checking out a suspicious bag.
So, another 20 minute wait until they let us in, the suspicious bag having been checked out and whisked off to suspicious bag purgatory. But we were on our way…right?
Nope. The carousel spit out a couple of bags right away, and then…stopped. We all figured that between the delay before we were let of f the plane and then the delay getting into the carousel that there would have been plenty of time to get the bags out of the plane and into our hands.
We figured wrong, so another twenty minute wait…are we ever going to get to New York?
The bags came eventually, K’s alarm clock was going off inside of her bag so I was fairly certain that we were going to be descended upon by all manner of security forces…but they let that slip.
We had planned on taking the New York Airport Service bus to Manhattan. I had called a few days earlier to see if they would take us to the hotel and was assured that “Yeah, we can take you dere.” Funny though, when I spoke to one of the NYAS representatives at the airport itself, he looked at me with a grin and shook his head ‘no’.
He did give us a tip to go to the travelers aid who could arrange a shuttle for us. So we trooped on over to the traveler’s aid and a wonderful lady from Queen’s, Janey, got us set up with a shuttle.
Janey was pure Queens joy, with long blond to grey hair and friendly pretty face that complimented her open-direct demeanor. She was excited to find out that we were running the marathon and when we told her that there was a way to track our progress online, she asked for our numbers and then told us that she’d be at the 56th street bridge in Queens and that she would be rooting for us.
“You don’t gotta worry”, she told us, “Now you got family here in New York!”
Our shuttle driver arrived and we followed him out to the van where another couple climbed in with us.
Great we are on our way, New York here we come!!!!
“Heh, heh, heh. Man, you outta towners are the best y’know?”
The shuttle driver was really quite good, in fact he provided us with an extended tour of every possible turn and terminal available at JFK while he wound his way around looking for more passengers. I had no idea that one airport could be so convoluted and massive.
After a several stops we had filled the van with people and made it to the airport exit.
Woo hoo! Now we’re on our way! Just a quick ride down the Van Wick Expressway and we were there.
That’s when I remembered the Seinfeld episode where George was trying to get to JFK in record time except that, “I’ve never beaten the Van Wick”.
We didn’t either.
2 hours after landing we emerged from the tunnel into Manhattan and now it didn’t matter to us how long it took because we fell into instant tourist-yokel mode. Gawking out the window and being glad that somebody else was driving, especially when it became evident that New York celebrates the last Friday of the month like they do in San Francisco, with the streets being flooded with bikers participating in Critical Mass, although I have to say that New York Critical Massers have a far greater amount of courage than their sometimes noisy SF counterparts. These people were truly insane to try weaving in and out of New York traffic.
I have to say also, that while intense and crazy, I like New York drivers and pedestrians because both have an innate understanding of the physics and motion dynamics. None of this “how-dare-you-think-of-touching-me” pedestrian attitude that seems to pervade West Coast streets. No, here, people on the street understand that a speeding cab will run you down because they are faster and a whole lot heavier that you, so people on the streets pay attention and walk when there are no cars coming, not stepping blithely into the street as if they were impervious to physical laws and damage.
But, we’re here now, and we are ready! And already got family here!
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