I Am Alive

Getting here was a practice in some sort of self torture, or at least some sort of torture.

The first part of the trip went fine. And by that I mean the part where we drove down to Lillian's to pick her up. The part where we drove to the airport went fine, too. We did have to rush Steve, who claimed we had plenty of time (we did) and that we would be doing a lot of waiting around (we were supposed to) so why start too early?

When we got to the airport we discovered that our flight to JFK had been cancelled. Nothing was going from Logan to JFK. Because, apparently, there might be thunderstorms later.

We had to quickly reschedule for a flight to Laguardia, rush to meet that plane (the flight was lovely), CLAIM OUR LUGGAGE - they lost our stroller, so we had to fill out those forms, and then catch a couple of cabs to JFK which drove through the worst traffic you could imagine when you're trying to catch a flight. At JFK we were supposed to check in again, rush through security (again) and then catch our flight.

At JFK we were greeed by a line of apparent refugees which stretched from one side of the Delta terminal (the interbational side) and all the way around to the other side. This was the line TO GET INTO THE TERMINAL. We had two hours until our flight took off. The line didn't seem to be moving. No one knew anything. Tension was so high because, in a fit of supreme thoughtfulness Delta scheduled FOUR FLIGHTS to leave at EXACTLY 7PM. Half the people on line spoke no English. We spent over two hours on this line, certain we were going to miss our flight, as people yelled at each other, security people yelled at other people, and med with guns guarded the terminal entrance.

Once inside we stood in line again, where a very unhelpful Delta employee named Samantha R. (nametag) told us out seat assignments - the ones we had been given by Delta and printed out on paper with the Delta confirmation number - actually didn't count and weren't in her computer, so we wouldn't get to sit near each other. Also, it took her fifteen minutes to not locate a large plastic bag to put our carseat in. When we finally made it to security (and they stopped yelling at me for walking to the door to drop off my "oversized Luggage of a carseat" even though the guy in front of us - I swear - checked a box containing an air purifier - we rushed rushed rushed to the terminal...

...where they were boarding. But they hadn't assigned us seats. So we were told (yelled at, actually) to wait while everyone else boarded the plane while the ONE MAN WORKING THERE got them all on and then came to gave us our new, not together seats.

We then sat for two hours on the runway waiting to take off.

The Actual flight itself was wonderful, as far as flights go. We rented the car with no problem and we are here. Later I will document our trip to the emergency room, and how my father accidentally took the computer back to the states... We're really having a good time. No, really!