We go to America once a year, which adds up to a lot of trips. For the
most part—despite the occasional hiccup—we have been lucky.
We have been lucky with the flights. But this time, both going and returning,
our flights were missed, cancelled, delayed and just not very comfortable (in a
first-world complaint sort of way).
Long story short: Missed connection in Newark, next flight cancelled,
next flight delayed, and delayed, and delayed.
This would not have been so bad if we had not been in Newark’s United
terminal, which handles short flights and therefore has all the amenities,
comfort and grandeur of a bus station.
We finally took off at 11:30 PM after 12 hours in the airport.
(We did, however, take off in a thunderstorm, which made for a lively
flight.)
Overall, we were lucky. Others didn’t even make it out that day. And I
just saw on FaceBonk that my niece has been in Newark since Tuesday trying to
get to Italy.
(First World Problem: On the return trip, the in-flight entertainment was on a loop. There were a number of channels you could select, each one showing a movie. The movies all started, apparently, when the plane did, so when I went to look for some diversion, all the movies were already on. There was no indication of what the movies were or how long they had been playing. When the movies ended, they repeated, but since all the movies were not the same length, you could only watch one, partial, movie, then switch to another, partial, movie. I know this is a really small thing, but c’mon, that’s 1970s technology.)
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| What the departures board looked like while we were waiting |
(First World Problem: On the return trip, the in-flight entertainment was on a loop. There were a number of channels you could select, each one showing a movie. The movies all started, apparently, when the plane did, so when I went to look for some diversion, all the movies were already on. There was no indication of what the movies were or how long they had been playing. When the movies ended, they repeated, but since all the movies were not the same length, you could only watch one, partial, movie, then switch to another, partial, movie. I know this is a really small thing, but c’mon, that’s 1970s technology.)
My final three words on this: “United,”
“Never” and “Again.”
Moving on.
We have been lucky with the hire
car. Never a scratch. This year: three.
We have been lucky with timing. This
year, my son, his wife and the G-kids moved house while we were there. (They
were supposed to have moved last month but, you know, closings.)
We have been lucky with the
weather. This year, it rained every day, except the last day, which was, oddly
enough, the 14th day.
This, you see, was our 13th
trip. I didn’t know it at the time, I just went along in a fog thinking, “Why
is everything going wrong?” I’m not triskaidekaphobic or anything, but when I
got home and realized what number this trip was, it all made sense.
We’re back now, and I’ll write up
our adventures soon. Until then, watch out for that pesky number…you know the
one.
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| We went to visit our favorite cafe, but it was closed. So we went to a different one. Pretentious, confusing and expensive, and this was our order number. I'm not superstitious or anything, I'm just sayin' |
Well, you made it home safe and sound... that's a plus!
ReplyDeleteI can never quite believe how third-worldy Newark airport is. I mean, tons of people use it for travel to NYC but it's awful.
ReplyDeleteI never found it a problem until this trip, though most of the problem was United Airlines, Newark was just the setting.
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