I'm back!
Let's recap the journey:
Friday at 11, I said my goodbyes to the people at the NY office and jumped in the car to drive to the airport. Of course, traffic, tons of it, but I factored a ton of traffic into my plans, so no problem. I listened to my bootleg Sheryl Crow and enjoyed the last hours of air conditioned car goodness. I arrived at the airport (yes, I actually didn't get lost this time) and started following the signs to the rental car buildings. 30 minutes later, I was still trying to figure out how to get to Hertz. New York has many signs that have arrows which point in vague directions, not left or right, more 'over there someplace' and then no follow up signs to let you know that you guessed correctly. The airport is no exception. I finally followed a courtesy pick-up bus. The car drop off was amazing, there was a guy who motioned me into a parking spot, scanned the code on the windshield and handed me a bill. Easy! I took the courtesy bus back to the airport and made the driver circle the route twice because I didn't hear him call the airline the first time.
At the airport I waited in a long snaking line for about 45 minutes. While there, Danny Glover passed by me with his cart of baggage two or three times. He looked like he'd been travelling for a while and needed a good sleep and a shower. I got through the line and was waiting in line for the baggage x-ray when one of the x-ray machine ladies yelled for three adults and a little girl to cut the line and come right over to her. One woman seemed a tad overdressed and wore sunglasses. I found out from the lady at my x-ray machine that it was Lil' Kim. Some other women around me were surprised that she didn't seem to be travelling with a bodyguard.
The computers went down all over the airport causing many delays. We finally got on the plane and were almost ready to leave when a man from the airline boarded and asked for two volunteers to wait for another flight so a woman and her two kids could get on. One man volunteered, but no one else wanted to leave so the airline guy said that the plane wasn't taking off until someone else got off. There were a lot of Americans on the plane, and they staged a small revolt. A couple were bumped by the airline guy amid much grumbling and the woman and her kids boarded and we were off, over an hour late. I was surrounded by a family, grandparents, parents and three children, a girl of about 7 was sitting next to me, who all had the plague. They were all coughing and hacking. I finally had to ask the little girl to please cover her mouth, she resembled a goose honking germs into the air and it was making me crazy. Her mother looked over at her and said, "I told you so". I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean because not 6 seconds earlier she was doing the same thing. Their son remarked that they were going to freeze when he heard that the temperature was 20C, and no parent corrected him. I'm starting to discover why Americans get such a hard rap. It seems that they only let the ignorant ones travel.
We had a fantastic flight and landing which of course ended with me stuck in rush hour traffic in a cab in which the driver spoke neither of the official languages and smoked in the cab.
It's great to be home!