Day 1 in NY

I feel like "today" consisted of 36 hours rather than just 24. I got off work May 20th at 1830 so I could make sure I had everything squared away before catching my red eye flight to Syracuse.

My dad, Mariel and Owen dropped me off at the curb at the SLC airport and I waved goodbye to them. I went inside and easily printed off my boarding pass for my flight to JFK and my connecting flight to Syracuse. I had made sure to arrange a 5 hour layover at JFK because I have bad experiences with JFK's traffic.

I went through security quickly because I didn't bring a laptop or checked luggage, and I was ready to board at about 2200. The flight was originally scheduled to depart at 2336 but the plane was late arriving so we didn't end up leaving until around 0020. Maybe later.

The flight lasted roughly 5 hours and I had been planning to just sleep that whole time but I got stuck with the one seat that couldn't recline. I slept exactly 0 minutes on that flight. When we finally got close to NYC all I could think about was how nice it would be to be able to sleep for 5 hours while I waited at JFK for my connecting flight. But, just my luck, there was heavy fog right above JFK and they had us in a holding pattern for at least an hour and a half. Then we got diverted to Newark so we could get the plane refueled because we pretty much used it all up just hovering above the city.

While we waited for the fuel truck to come give us a refill, everyone was given the opportunity to exit the aircraft and either find a connecting flight at Newark or take a cab to JFK since departures weren't being affected by the low fog. Or we comld just opt to stick it out on the plane. We were told that it would probably take longer to get a port for exiting the plane than the refueling would take. At this point it was only about 720 and they said we could make it to JFK within an hour. 19 out of the original 150 passengers decided that exiting was a better bet than staying on board but I figured that since my connecting flight wasn't going to board until 950, I'd have plenty of time to take a nap and grab some breakfast before my flight-- even with a three hour delay.

We ended up stuck at Newark from 715 until 915 at which point we finally rejoined the queue for takeoff. At this point I had pretty much given up making my connecting flight on time and was trying to figure out how I could get a rental car and maybe drive from Queens to Syracuse. I was even getting a little pumped about the idea.

Luckily for my bank account, we finally docked with JFK at 947. I hurried to find my gate ASAP since there was.still a chance that I might make it... and I only just made it to the tail end of boarding. Unfortunately that rush left me zero time to.use the restroom or grab breakfast or stretch my legs or take a nap.

But I didn't miss my flight.

Rina was waiting for me right outside of security. I didn't even have to call or text her to tell her I'd arrived like I thought I'd have to. As soon as we went outside I felt that familiar blanket of humidity and loved it. Wesel and Jack were waiting in the car and we went to Subway for free six inch sandwiches. They were really good.

I kept myself awake all day but it was mostly a daze. After lunch all the way until dinner I played with Jack. He is super cute! Rina told me that they have an extra car until July or later and that I'm welcome to use it while I'm in town, so after dinner I went to Rosemary's with Cherry Chris and we made s'mores on a small fire and got our flippy floppy feet eaten alive by evil mosquitoes. We talked and enjoyed our treats for a while and at about 2130 we decided to call it quits. I went back to the Wesels house and decided to write a blog post for my mom before going to sleep.