Happy New Year! I took a break from the Big Apple to relax and celebrate the holidays at home. It was absolutely wonderful and a needed vacation. I am now back in NYC for the second half of my program, but I wanted to share a bit of my experience traveling over break.
Now, I consider myself quite the pro at flying, so I didn't think much about flying home for the holidays. I mean, I have been in a long distance relationship for 2 years and counting, that is a lot of airports. As I packed to leave my roommate asked if I had traveled this close to the holidays. I haven't, but it can't be that different could it? I was mistaken.
My flight home was scheduled for 6 am. I clearly wasn't thinking when this flight was booked, because I needed to be at the airport at 4:30 am. I proudly arrived at LaGuardia Airport at 4:15 am, only to find a line 30 people long at the Southwest check-in counter. Why isn't everyone asleep?? I soon discovered that they were not going to open the check-in counter til 5. I quickly befriended the people in line around me, it was going to ne a long morning. Finally at about 5:15 I got checked in. At this point the line of 30 had grown to about 80. Good Morning Everyone! My new airport family and I were calm, seeing we have 45 minutes to get through security that is, until we saw the line for security. We were in a line, around the corner, and down the hall from the actually security line. I felt as if I were at Disney World, at 5:30 in the morning.
5:50 We are finally in security. The rush is on. We throw off our shoes, and take out our laptops and wait for a bin. Then a girl five people ahead of us in line stops and turns to security, "Ummm, Hi. What should I do with my cat?" We immediately started laughing. Our flight leaves in 10 minutes and we picked the line with the cat lady. Just our luck! Thankfully the cat didn't slow us down and we boarded our flight at 5:57. Amen and Amen,
In all the of the mayhem, I didn't even notice the new fancy scan machines. I completely avoided them on the flight home, so I was fully prepared to have to deal with the new controversy on the flight back to the city.
I kissed Miguel goodbye and walked into the security on my flight back to NYC. I was crying like a fool, of course. I am no stranger to crying in airports either. I took off my shoes and got in line, and there was the scary body scanner. Great. Nothing like crying while strange people take scans of your naked body. I can't wait. But then, like a beacon of hope, this older sweet man called me over to go through the good old fashioned metal detector. I wanted to hug him, but I figured that would be inappropriate.
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