A Five-Hour Rundown
I’m tired.
And not the I-just-got-done-with-eight-performances-of-Nutcracker-I’m-going-to-sleep-for-a-week tired. I mean the I-just-got-off-a-five-hour-flight-two-hours-ago-have-nearly-ten-hours-to-wait-and-then-a-seven-hour-flight-coming-up kind of tired.
My mom and my godmother dropped me off at Reno-Tahoe International Airport yesterday evening about 6:45 p.m. After checking in, checking my bag and telling my mom goodbye, I made the familiar trek through the airport to TSA.
It was basically deserted. Scanning my pass was quick and easy, but it took me a few minutes to get everything into the plastic bins and through the scanners, not to mention myself. I had both my elbow brace and my knee brace on, and they made me take both off, which is understandable, but still a pain in the ass.
As I was putting my shoes back on and scrambling to put everything back into my bags, a couple of older women came through the checkpoint not far behind me, and both were flagged. The reason? I found it kind of funny, actually- rocks.
They were flagged for rocks.
Come to find out, one of them is an avid rock collector, and the other bought an amethyst stone worth over $75. Understandable, but still, slightly funny. Everyone who checked into JetBlue got up to the terminal two hours early, and most of us ended up in the bar; I ended up sitting between the two women who’d checked in ahead of me, the rock collectors.
One is from New Jersey, and the other from Connecticut. NJ is loud and vivacious; Connecticut is quiet but opinionated. They bought me a drink, and proceeded to tell me about how they’ve known each other for sixteen years, and have traveled out west together for the last twelve years or so. When I told them that I’m moving to Ireland for school, they gave me the contact information from a friend of theirs who lives in Cork, and told me to get a hold of her when I get settled at school.
The flight was a typical cross-country flight; the usual safety procedures, my usual panic during takeoff, and most of the passengers snoring away or tapping away on their phones. I put the new Aladdin movie on; it was good, but not as good as the original, and there are things about it I didn’t care for, but that’s a post for another time. We got into New York a little before 8 a.m, with the sun breaking over the skyline, making everything appear to be dipped in honey.
Everyone on my flight managed to make it to baggage claim before eight, surprisingly. It was a slow process of waiting for them to unload our luggage, and then watching all bags move in very slow circles until one of us found our bag and either chased it around the carousel or grabbed it on the spot. Nine times out of ten, it ended up being chased. As we gathered up our luggage, NJ and Connecticut each gave me a hug and told me to keep in touch and have fun. I promised I would.
After asking an airport worker how to get to the Norwegian check-in, I had to go up two escalators, catch an AirTrain and go down two more escalators to reach the check-in, only to discover that I don’t have to check in until about six or so. So I trekked up the escalator to the mezzanine where the food court is, got chicken and rice, a cup of coffee, and now currently sit at a charging station, letting my electronics charge while the clock ticks away So. Damn. Slowly
What seems like a good idea now is another cup of coffee, and then the search for a comfy chair (if possible in JFK), the Divergent Series, both book and movies, and a nap.