Saturday, June 16, 2007

Eating doubletree cookies in New York

June 16, 2007

We were supposed to be in Iceland right now, or at least approaching it. Instead we are watching Saturday Night Live at the JFK Double Tree Hotel .
We got up this morning in four am darkness, took a taxi to the San Francisco airport, stood in a long line to check in, a longer line to go through security and then the flight was late. We were feeling relaxed in spite of the lateness as we had a four hour layover in NY, lots of time to spare to catch our connecting flight. Our extra four hours, however, were then eaten up by circling JFK due to inclement weather, flying to Dulles Washington to refuel because of all that circling, then flying back to JFK...We missed our Icelandic connection by minutes. I thought I might cry. It feels worse to miss something by a smidge than by a mile, somehow.
We got one of the last hotel rooms that was close, then stood for another long wait for the shuttle. As the shuttle pulled away Louis saw an old man who had also missed the Icelandic plane waving the shuttle down. Louis got the driver to stop so the man could get on. Once on the shuttle the man told me he only saw his son once a year and they were supposed to be meeting tonight in Rekyjavik. He looked tired and disappointed. We will see the man again tomorrow, I suspect, as there is only one flight to Iceland on Sundays, unfortunately not until evening. I am trying not to think about how I would've been waking up in Akureyri tomorrow, trying not to think of taking the shuttle back to the airport and how we might not get a flight from Rejkyavik to Akureyri when we finally get there. Sam is counseling us to get up early in the morning so that we can be partially adjusted to Icelandic time zone when we get there, so I guess I'd better try to get some sleep.

1 comment:

maggiemight said...

Damn. Not a nice start. Just the circling the airport part is enough, even if you hadn't missed your connection. Yikes.

I guess the only thing now is to eat more cookies and look forward. This must mean the universe owes you an even better time in Iceland, since you got such a crappy start.

From this end, it is really fun to be able to check in on you guys from my browser, even if its to hear of this rocky start. Thanks for keeping us up to date!

Oh! And Happy Father's Day to Louis!!!
Sally