Back to Europe I (we) go.

Joe and I departed from my favorite airport in the world: Will Rogers.  Why my favorite, you ask?  Because there are about 12 gates, proceeding through security typically takes anywhere between 30 and 90 seconds, and you can walk the whole airport front to back (or rather, side to side) in under 5 minutes flat.  The downside: direct flights really don’t exist from Will Rogers (unless you’re going to Salt Lake, Denver, or anywhere in Texas), so it’s a bit of trade off.  Another downside: there are NO good places to eat at Will Rogers.  None.  Usually I just get a large Butterfinger Blast from Sonic and deal with it in my own way.

Anyhow, Joe and I flew from OKC to DFW before our final connecting flight to LGA (we are spending time in NYC and then DC before departing to Europe).  I have bragged in the past about my most useful talent – the ability to fall asleep before takeoff and wake up at landing – but on this trip I learned that Joe’s airplane-sleeping skills are all that mine are and more.  That is to say, Joe falls asleep at sit-down and wakes up at “Wake up, Joe, we’re the last ones on the plane.”  I’m kind of jealous, I will say.  I would love to be able to sleep through the emergency video demonstration, but I can’t.  Because what if I need to fasten my oxygen mask so securely around my face?  What if everyone on the plane has passed out and I need to know how to open the emergency exit door to escape??  What if I need to detach my dual-functioning seat cushion and use it as a flotation device???  What if I haven’t learned how to do any of these things from watching videos on the 800 flights I’ve taken in the past 27 years????  I would run these concerns by Joe, but he’s too busy sleeping with his arms crossed and his mouth open to care.

The most notable moment at DFW occurred when we stepped off the plane and learned our connecting flight’s gate was 3 terminals away.  A similarly destined passenger and NYC native (very clear from her accent) discovered this information alongside of us and threw a fit about it.  I mean, a real fit – one reminiscent of a terrible-twos-toddler except with a lot of f-words.  (Maybe some 2-year-olds use the f-word, I don’t know.  It’s 2015.)  Joe and I were standing beside her watching her scream at the airline employee and I wanted to ask, “What exactly do you want them to do?  Change the gate again and require everyone at D25 to come here to A16?  Does that seem practical to you?  Does that sound like a feasible solution?”  Or maybe she just wanted them to upgrade her to first glass, I’m not sure.  If that were the case, she may have been on to something.....  Regardless, I had a moment where I thought, “Is this what New York is like?  Is this what we have to look forward to?  We’ll just walk around amidst a sea of angry people screaming f-words in such a way that immediately evokes the mental image of Robert Deniro’s character in Goodfellas?”

I didn’t have much time to ponder my ignorance of the northeast because once we boarded our plane, we sat there, and sat there, and sat there, and sat there.  For 120 minutes.  During this time, the A/C was not running, and the pilot inexplicably felt the need to communicate over the loud speaker every detail of the problem.  “Hello, folks, we are just waiting on the mechanic to arrive.  We can’t get the cabin door closed and we need the mechanic to bring us a tool that will allow us to close the door, so we’ll keep you informed as to his whereabouts.” ... “Hello, folks, the mechanic has left his house and is now on his way to the airport!” ... “Hello, folks, the mechanic is stuck in traffic at the moment – there’s some construction right now – and he’s hurrying as best he can.” ... This went on for two hours – seriously, two hours – and in case you were wondering, no – it was not comforting to know that a part of the aircraft was so badly unhinged that only one man in the tri-county area could repair it.  Honestly, though, I was sort of too busy talking myself through the lack of air circulation to care.  I’ve never done hot yoga, but I promise this was worse.

Oh, and another thing – Joe’s and my seats were reassigned and separated to allow a family of four to segregate their grown children who “really, really, really need to sit apart.”  I am not a parent, but I surely hope that in the event that I have a 9-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy, they are civilized enough to sit in the same row of an airplane.  I also hope that said 9-year-old girl doesn’t announce to her fellow passengers that her family is “SOOOOOO RICH” and that that’s why they are traveling “ALLLLL THE TIME.” In other words, it wasn’t my favorite flight.

When we landed at LGA, we de-boarded and herded ourselves through the crowd to baggage claim, and I felt very cool to be in New York City.  I’d never been!  (Which you might have surmised by my culture-shocked, childlike reaction to the Obscenity Queen of Gate A16.) 

I expressed all of this to Joe and he quickly reminded me that there are, in fact, cooler-feeling places in NYC than La Guardia Airport... So onward to baggage claim we went.

It was there, standing at carousel 5, that I saw a striking young man wearing a pair of Yeezy Boosts: something I’d never seen with my own eyes.  I grabbed Joe’s arm immediately. 

“Joe!  Is he wearing Yeezy’s?”
”Yeah.”
"Do you think it would be okay if I asked how much he paid for them and where exactly he got them?"
"No."

And that was the end of that. 

Joe and I were traveling with 2 large backpacks, 1 carry-on duffel, 1 suit bag, 1 purse, and 1 carry-on backpack.  When we travel, Joe does this thing where he carries everything, and I carry just my purse.  I’m not sure how he does it, but he makes it look really easy, and I am really fine with it.

Other than that, we had a fairly uneventful bus ride from LGA to Lindsay’s apartment in Harlem.  Her apartment is so nice, and it has A DOORMAN and an ELEVATOR.  This was big for me.  When we walked into her actual apartment, Lindsay had made up our bed for us and set a stack of clean towels at the foot of it.  Don’t you love that feeling at the end of a long travel day when you reach your final destination and can finally set your bags down and exhale?  And don’t you just love New York in the [summer]??  I do!  And I have a lot more to say about it (shocking, I know).

Stay tuned.