It was a seemingly endless day which started with early morning and a cab to the train station. The good thing about rail-air is that you can drop off your bags as you arrive in the long distance train terminal in Frankfurt. The bad thing is that you had to haul them that far.
Since this is a one-way trip for the Maus we had more than a few things along with us. Me? enough clothes for a week. Her? A couple of suitcases of things with which to start school.
After making it onto the plane (another one of the new Airbuses which was packed to the gills) we found ourselves in sequential isle seats with not unreasonable seat mates.
Arriving in NYC proved to be a challenge in getting through immigration. I have so far not registered for the government expedited pass check through, but spending 30-60 minutes in line is starting to make it look like a good deal.
Claiming our luggage, the challenge then was to connect with my good SF buddy who was rescuing us from the airport. I had his phone number. We didn’t have a phone. Yes, I have a t-mobile phone. The sim card is locked. Not locked in terms of I can’t use my pin, but it is steadfastly refusing to let me do anything other than emergency phone calls. Calling a friend is not an emergency.
Believe it or not, there are pay phones in the International Arrivals area of JFK – you just have to have US change. All of this was finally solved, we found him, loaded the suitcases and headed to Brooklyn to arrive between room key handout times but with five minutes to spare on picking up her ID.
(Note, schools are getting smarter. Rather than have a whole set up to do photos and make ID – you have to send in a digital photo ahead of time. They make the IDs on a reasonable schedule and you are issued yours with proper proof of identification. This also gets rid of all the complaints about bad photos…..
Finally getting to New Hyde Park – we went to Eddies for pizza then crashed and burned due to the early Reno flight in the morning (and that I don’t have a clue as to who/where/what is going on anyway…….
-Holly
New Hyde Park, Long Island
