Day #1 of our NYC Adventure…we were booked on Delta, and our flight wasn’t until 11:00 am. A non-stop flight to LaGuardia, this would have us arriving in NYC around 3:00 pm – perfect for evening activities.
While waiting at our local airport, we were seated outside of security…because Kansas City, in homgage to our redneck reputation, doesn’t offer any shops, restaurants, or restrooms in the secured area. Yeah – fun times. If you’ve gone through security – and you have to pee – tough. You either hold it – or you go back out, do your business, and then get back in line again for the TSA Patdown. Fun times. Being the Kansas City experts that we are, we know to opt to sit outside of security until the last possible moment...which we did.
Anyway – while we were sitting there, a German family of three walked up to us and offered us their canned sodas. Apparently, they had purchased these without thinking they couldn’t take them past security – and were offering them to us. Hey – they were still sealed, so who were we to turn down some international generosity?! We wouldn’t want to start an international incident, so we graciously accepted, and had a toast to our upcoming adventure:
To the Germans! And to New York!!!
While enjoying our cool, refreshing drinks, Hubby did what he always does:
...which is check the stock market...while Daughter and I messed around with our iPhones and began documenting our adventure:
Eventually, we saw some friends of ours that we knew, Pat and Debbie, who were coincidentally ALSO flying to New York. And on the same flight as we were. We hadn’t seen them in quite a while, so we had a grand old time catching up…while sitting in an airport terminal, of all places.
Our flight was smooth and uneventful – until we landed. Well. Let me rephrase that. The landing was smooth and uneventful – thank goodness – but it was our approach to the gate that somehow got screwed up. As we pulled up to the gate, everyone onboard stood up and began gathering their bags – out of the overhead bins, from under the seats – all that normal chaos that ensues when people who have been trapped for several hours in an aluminum tube sense freedom is close at hand.
However, it became soon evident that no one was moving. No one was disembarking the plane. For whatever reason – it wasn’t clear at this point – the door wasn’t being opened to let the trapped passengers off. We stood…and we stood…and we stood. Hmmmm….
Soon, a flight attendant came on the loud speaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we are having a bit of trouble with the jet bridge…you might as well have a seat until we can figure out what is going on.”
Oh, lovely. Just what everyone wants to do when landing. Sit back down. But that’s what everyone does…and we wait…and we wait…and we wait. Gah. We’re SO close – within inches of the gate – and yet we can’t disembark. Frustrating.
Eventually, a second announcement comes on: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to ask you to re-buckle your seatbelts, as we’re going to try to ‘ooch’ the plane forward a bit – to see if this helps.”
“Ooch”???? Now there’s a technical term if we’ve ever heard one. We can only hope that ooching the plane will get us off the plane.
So…we wait…and we wait…and we wait…and if the plane “ooched” – it was so slight, none of us felt it. Perhaps we're not supposed to feel an ooch, but who knows. Perhaps if you feel it, it's gone beyond the ooch phase and has become something else.
I digress. Anywho.
After several, long, agonizing – what seemed like forever – minutes, the third and final announcement: “Uh, ooching didn’t work…so we’re going to bring stairs up to the door, and we’ll have you disembark and load up onto a bus on the tarmac, which will take you to the terminal.”
So, that’s what happened. Of course, me being afraid of what airport security would do if I was seen taking photos of this little adventure – I mean, I assumed they would NOT like people taking photos down on the tarmac, but I could be wrong – but if I WASN’T wrong, I didn’t want to end up in federal prison somewhere, although that would SURELY give me some interesting and adventures to blog about – I kept my camera safely hidden away.
But my 13-year old daughter, having no such fear – or common sense, apparently – snuck some photos of our little adventure:
There's Hubby...making his way down...along with my arm...
One bus wasn't enough for all of us - they eventually had to bring in a second one...
After dropping us off here, we entered the airport - went up a back staircase - and were FINALLY on our way...
After being bussed a short distance to the terminal, we FINALLY were inside and gathering our checked luggage, and making our way to the curb. Here, I had pre-ordered a ride from a company called Dial 7 (their link is HERE)... which provided a luxury sedan, for three people, for a total of $34.00. For a trip from LaGuardia (in Queens, no less) to midtown Manhattan. AWESOME deal.
Our driver was waiting for us, and off we went…well. Let me rephrase that. It’s now about 3:30 pm on a Friday afternoon…which equates – in New York City, anyway – to the biggest traffic jam of all time. For some unknown reason, everyone in New York City is exactly where they DON’T want to be at that time – so millions of people are all trying to MOVE to where they WANT to be at that time. Everyone HERE is trying to get over THERE and everyone THERE is trying to get over HERE. Absolute. Mass. Chaos. Gah.
We crawled…and we inched…and we crawled…and eventually, we were finally going under the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Which, let me interrupt here by saying that I absolutely, unequivocally, HATE the tunnels in NYC. Hate them. They FREAK me out to no end….I guess it’s my small bit of claustrophobia that I have, and feeling that these long, dark tunnels offer NO escape if traffic were to potentially come to a dead stop. We’d be trapped. In a long, dark scary tunnel. ACK! So, as I always do when going through these tunnels, I began hyperventilating a bit – as if breathing really fast would help the traffic move faster – and of course, Hubby and Daughter looked at me like I was crazy. Which I guess I sorta’ am. But really…surely I’m not the only one who HATES, HATES, HATES these tunnels….??? Right???
Just the word "tunnel" can send me into a panic attack...gah.
Soon, we were pulling up to our hotel…the San Carlos Hotel. Here, our driver patiently unloaded us - and our luggage - and we were good to go.
Would we like it? Would it be big enough for three people? Would it be noisy? Would it be infested with the infamous NYC bed bugs?
Well…I’ll answer all that…in the next post…
No comments:
Post a Comment