The wait at LAX ended up being 2.5 hours. They moved us out to the ‘outback’ area of LAX where I have been a couple of times before, but never for this long. This was my view for 2.5 hours.
The staff were lovely and bought around juice and water and put the entertainment system but I was sick of looking at a tiny screen and my long-haul fatigue and emotionally fragile state was not being helped at all by this situation. Knowing I had no way of contacting the people in New York who were meeting me at the apartment (even though I gave full flight details I thought the chances of them actually checking if the flight was on time was slim to none) was really stressing me out. Compounded by the fact I was wondering if my many cases made it from that dodgy conveyor belt to the actual plane etc etc. I spent the whole time at LAX basically stressing out due to being extremely over-tired and extremely over-sensitive!
When we started our taxi to the runway I somehow fell into the deepest sleep and missed take off and all the bits and pieces after that and woke up with the food cart halfway down the plane when the whole time I was starving. I was so hungry I even forgot to take a photo of the meal but it was absolutely disgusting and I left nearly all of it on the tray… which alone tells you how bad it was. It really wasn’t worth running the length of the plane for.
I tried to watch the rest of Gone With The Wind but I was so overtired I had some more on/off sleep and before I knew it we were going through the-longest-descent-in-the-history-of-aviation to be ready to land at JFK. We made up time and I ended up at the luggage carousel by about 7.15! Now came challenge number 758,382 of this journey so far. My cases. A trolley. A taxi and whether-or-not they would… fit!
I actually forgot to mention that on that flight, I had the most obnoxious woman behind me who was served way too much wine during the flight and who also happened to befriend me at the carousel. As typical as all the situations on this journey, both her bags and mine were last out. She was yelling about this party in NY that she just HAD to get to, how she only had one change of clothes – you know the kind of thing I just loved listening too after way too little sleep and way too much stress and being very much in need of a shower. While trying to act like I didn’t know her, I decided to do things a little differently to LA and attempt to stack all five bags on the ONE trolley as well as my carry-on. Believe it or not – it worked. Another girl helped me lift them up and I was able to wheel them slowly out of the terminal with five different comments being given by strangers about over-packing. Thanks folks.
The taxi ranks at JFK are very orderly, well organised and efficient and as soon as the marshall saw my stack of cases he ushered me over to the side while other people hopped into there cabs and eventually one cab pulled over for me. 3 cases in the back, one in the seat with me and one in the front passenger seat. It worked!! And before I knew it we were out of JFK and on the Van Wyck Expressway which is the harshest reality check of “YES! YOU ARE IN NEW YORK!!!”
I, like I am sure many people who arrive at JFK and take a cab, just held on for dear life while we negotiated the back streets of Queens and lucky for me, my photographic memory of Google Maps worked a treat as I was able to direct him straight to my apartment! 🙂
It was now… 8.10pm and I had fingers, toes and suitcase straps crossed that the apartment people were there to meet me as it was dark and storms were on the horizon. Argh!