6.29.10 - JFK

6.29.10
So I’m sitting in JFK Airport, having my traditional pre-flight beer, and I figured this is as good as any time to start my blog. But, the Irish pub I’m sitting in doesn’t have wifi, so I thought I would write this anyways, and then just post it later. A little less official, but really, who is going to read this anyways?? I’ve been working for the last year and a half, with no energy or time to write, and now my schedule is wide open; I felt this trip was the perfect excuse to exercise my writing. So readers, beware. This could potentially be the most boring blog you have ever read, but I, in trepidation, owe it to myself to continue writing.
The pre flight beer tradition started while I was traveling throughout Europe with my dear friends Molly and Ma Kelly…and I try to uphold it whether with friends or traveling alone, for better or for worse (missed flights and drunken landings being some of the best examples of the “worse”, infrequent though they were) . But I find that sitting in a pub by myself, with my bag in my lap, drinking a Newcastle is one of my favorite ways to people watch. Although, I feel I may have already passed through my most interesting portion of my airport experience. I’m flying direct to Cairo today on Egypt Air, and I’m fairly certain that I was the only non-Egyptian in the line at that point, and I was definitely one of the only people with less than 6 pieces of luggage in my possession. The line was enormous!!! It stretched all the way through the prepared lines, around the kiosk and down the hall. I thought for sure that I would miss my flight, even though I was 3 hours early. Then along came some gracious EgyptAir employee who asked me how many bags I had. When I told him I only had two, he happily told me to head to the express line, where I waited behind one other couple who had 3 bags between them. I thought for sure my luck was too good to be true. And it was; I then entered the luggage drop off line, behind 3 or 4 families with at least 15 pieces of luggage each. The whole escapade made me laugh. The men who were loading the luggage onto the x-ray belt looked exasperated; I don’t think they found it as amusing as I did.
Well, the Newcastle is almost done (and let me tell you it costs more to have a preflight beer in JFK than it does at Midway) and I should probably go sit at my gate so as to avoid the aforementioned “worse” case scenarios. Anyways, Cheers, and happy travels to me!