January 1, 2008
We left for JFK International Airport at 8am. The city was absolutely dead. There were a few cars on the road and about 4
people walking about. The stores were, for the most part, closed. When I got to
the luggage check-in, both bags were overweight and United was going to charge
me 100 bucks! Luckily, the woman at the luggage check was willing to help me
shift things around so only one was overweight. I boarded the plane and we left
at around 11:30am. The plane ride was boring. The in-flight movie was The Jane Austin Book Club. It was very
silly and kind of boring. Of course, I’ve only read Pride and Prejudice. Maybe
if I had read more Austin I would have understood more. Anyway, then I listened
to the XM Radio, which was good songs, but it only played the same 10 songs
over and over again. I missed the episode of Grey’s Anatomy that was showing
because I was listening to music, and by the time it was over, the radio
playlist was repeating. I tried to
sleep, to no avail, and got really restless. The 5 hour plane ride included no
meals. They gave us a tiny bag of pretzels and drinks, but no real food. I
ended up buying a five dollar snack pack on the plane, which included diced
pear, bagel chips, veggie cream cheese, granola with nuts and raisins, a cinnamon
twist, and a cashew candy.
I arrived at LAX at 2:15pm (LA Time), half an hour early. I
was starving, having not had a meal since 4am (LA time), so I grabbed some
McDonald’s and sat on the airport floor to eat. At about 5:30pm, Lara called to
say she was at the gate. I had to take a shuttle bus from one terminal to
another. This was my only experience of LA outside, the airport shuttle ride.
At the gate, people slowly began to show up until most of the group was there.
We chatted and got to know each other a bit. We boarded the plane at about 9pm
and were saddened to find we were spread throughout the plane. I was sitting
next to two girls from the trip, which was nice. Mostly people slept on the
plane, but not me. I watched The Nanny
Diaries, Seeker: The Dark is Rising, and The Simpsons Movie, played some Tetris, and watched the Air Show,
which showed the flight path, altitude, distance we had flown, temperature and
the time left in our flight. I nabbed maybe an hour of sleep in 10 or 15 minute
increments. The plane was huge, a double-decker, and the flight staff were very
pleasant. They fed us two meals: supper and breakfast.
January 2
This day did not exist (we crossed the International Date
Line)
