New York is 90% Police Sirens And 10% TSA Checkpoints
At 4:45 this morning, we all met in the lobby of our Saint Petersburg hotel to check out and fly back to Moscow. There we parted with Chip and Julie, who were planning to stay for another week. It's nice, because while Chip is really nice, he and Julie, when together, can be completely juvenile. This is bad, when coming from someone my age. They practically laugh at their own fart jokes.
Anyway, by default, Kathy is left in charge due to her being in her fifties. That's supposed to mean she's seasoned enough to know how to use an airport, right? No.
Anyway, by some miracle we made it to our gate, passed all the security checkpoints, etc., and boarded our flight. It's about ten hours to fly from Moscow to New York, and in our case it was even longer-- we sat on the runway for two hours to de-ice and wait for white-out conditions to get better. Hey, it happens. The flight was peaceful; I ended up sitting through the crappy in-flight movies without judging myself too badly. There were such gems as The Soloist, which is booooring and didn't have a point anywhere, don't waste your time by watching it ever ever, and Last Chance Harvey, which was, I don't know, stupid, and Whip It, which was sadly the most redeeming of the three. The Informant also played, but the only thing worse than Matt Damon is Uglier Matt Damon In 80s Clothes, and to make things more unappealing the whole thing was about Enron, which is about as interesting as any other white-collar crime-- I napped through this one.
Even with all of this really awful boring stuff, the flight itself seemed to go by quickly. We arrived in New York around 5:20 after waiting on the runway for our open terminal to disembark. This was fine, except we were supposed to fly to Minneapolis/Saint Paul at 5:30, and as everyone knows, international flights require you to go through customs and recheck luggage. We didn't connect with that flight. The Delta agent I spoke to was apologetic, though it was obvious she'd been dealing with harried customers all evening. Because we were delayed due to weather rather than something that's actually within their control, free hotels weren't given. The earliest flight she was able to get us out on was the 5:30 flight tomorrow evening, which all translates to the fact that I'm stuck in New York for 24 hours, which is hell, because I hate musical theater.
I suppose this would be a great time to tell everyone that this brought out the 'best' in my traveling companions. One of them threw a crying fit, another snapped at an attendant, and the mind of our 'group leader' didn't process a thing, so she was asking the same four questions three or four times. I'm not sure if she was expecting to get a different answer, or what. I understand that we as a group have been traveling for twenty-some odd hours straight, and that some of us are sick, but there is no excuse to act that way, especially in public. I was disappointed in them, and I can safely say that with some of the behavior exhibited by these people, I don't ever intend to travel with them again.
On the plus side, Russia kicked ass. Now, I'm going to take a shower, call my dad, eat, and try to figure out what I'm going to do for clothing tomorrow. Cheers!
Anyway, by default, Kathy is left in charge due to her being in her fifties. That's supposed to mean she's seasoned enough to know how to use an airport, right? No.
Anyway, by some miracle we made it to our gate, passed all the security checkpoints, etc., and boarded our flight. It's about ten hours to fly from Moscow to New York, and in our case it was even longer-- we sat on the runway for two hours to de-ice and wait for white-out conditions to get better. Hey, it happens. The flight was peaceful; I ended up sitting through the crappy in-flight movies without judging myself too badly. There were such gems as The Soloist, which is booooring and didn't have a point anywhere, don't waste your time by watching it ever ever, and Last Chance Harvey, which was, I don't know, stupid, and Whip It, which was sadly the most redeeming of the three. The Informant also played, but the only thing worse than Matt Damon is Uglier Matt Damon In 80s Clothes, and to make things more unappealing the whole thing was about Enron, which is about as interesting as any other white-collar crime-- I napped through this one.
Even with all of this really awful boring stuff, the flight itself seemed to go by quickly. We arrived in New York around 5:20 after waiting on the runway for our open terminal to disembark. This was fine, except we were supposed to fly to Minneapolis/Saint Paul at 5:30, and as everyone knows, international flights require you to go through customs and recheck luggage. We didn't connect with that flight. The Delta agent I spoke to was apologetic, though it was obvious she'd been dealing with harried customers all evening. Because we were delayed due to weather rather than something that's actually within their control, free hotels weren't given. The earliest flight she was able to get us out on was the 5:30 flight tomorrow evening, which all translates to the fact that I'm stuck in New York for 24 hours, which is hell, because I hate musical theater.
I suppose this would be a great time to tell everyone that this brought out the 'best' in my traveling companions. One of them threw a crying fit, another snapped at an attendant, and the mind of our 'group leader' didn't process a thing, so she was asking the same four questions three or four times. I'm not sure if she was expecting to get a different answer, or what. I understand that we as a group have been traveling for twenty-some odd hours straight, and that some of us are sick, but there is no excuse to act that way, especially in public. I was disappointed in them, and I can safely say that with some of the behavior exhibited by these people, I don't ever intend to travel with them again.
On the plus side, Russia kicked ass. Now, I'm going to take a shower, call my dad, eat, and try to figure out what I'm going to do for clothing tomorrow. Cheers!