As with many of my last days on a trip this was not much of
a day at all. It started at 3:30am when the alarm went off and I got showered
and completed packing. Daniela packed up a lot of her stuff but didn’t finish
leaving the apartment because there was still the matter of checking out which
needed to be done later in the day. We
were outside for the taxi we ordered the night before by 4am. He was actually
early which was interesting. He drove us
first to Daniela’s house where she dropped off her stuff but I didn’t end up
getting some of the stuff I had left at her house by accident. All good I will be seeing her again
soon. From there we were taken to the
airport. The only traffic we saw was actually at the airport.
Check-in was easy as there was little line (still I always
wonder why every other person in the world takes 20 minutes to do what I get
done in 5 minutes????!!!!). After dropping off the bag and getting the boarding
passes Daniela and I hung around the airport for the next hour and a half. We
had breakfast at a place called Pikeos. I had a ham and cheese sandwich with
fries (it was done with garlic bread style toast and was tasty but a lot) and a
coffee. Daniela had a fruit salad and
cappuccino. Then we looked at shopping for a bit then sat in the food court for
a few minutes before it was time for me to leave, sadly.
There was no line at security or at immigration and I was
through quickly. I spent another couple minutes shopping then was on to the
gate where boarding was already near done (the flight wasn’t supposed to depart
for another 35 minutes but it was not full).
So I got on (I was given an extra room seat in front of the wing by a
couple rows which was quite nice, especially because the seat next to me was
empty. It made me feel ok that I was on a window seat). We took off early as the plane was finished
boarding early. I fell asleep for a little while then woke up and saw that they
were showing Frozen so I watched what was left of that so maybe I missed the
first 10 or 15 minutes of it before I woke up).
They served breakfast which I just ate the fruit and fake croissant. I
had tea and water otherwise. After the
movie I fell asleep again and woke up a few minutes before we passed over Cuba.
I know this because I opened the window and saw Cuba. It was probably another half an hour till
landing time which had a couple small bumps but the flight was really
uneventful.
At the airport I used Global Entry and got through
immigration quickly then on to wait for the bag. I was basically bag number 10
or so off the conveyor. From there a quick run through the global entry version
of customs and on to recheck the bag. After rechecking the bag it was a run
through a special security area for people taking connecting flights. There was
only one line but it moved reasonably ok, probably because everyone had to have
checked security somewhere else before.
After security I found my flight gate was at D49 and had to take the skytrain
to that section of the D concourse. I then found the gate right in front of the
Island Grill which I had eaten at before. I had a burger with cheddar and bacon
and a West Coast IPA from San Diego.
Then it was on to the gate to wait for the boarding process. There was
significantly more than an hour and a half to go before departure.
Of course not having much else to do I just found a seat at
the gate area and waited it out. I watched a bit of what they had on TV though
none of it was anything exciting. The plane had to be late on arrival. It was
coming in from an international location then on to Boston but arrived at least
15 minutes late and took them a long time to check and clean so we left
probably about 45 minutes late after all.
I ended up in another extra space seat (the guy at the AA desk in Lima
must have liked me for the instant upgrades) and had no one to my side so even
though it was again a window seat I didn’t mind. I spent the vast majority of the flight
sleeping. They didn’t play movies, only TV shows and I did not feel like
digging out my headphones anyway (internal to US flights charge for
headphones). The flight was uneventful
with only a couple bumps. We landed
late of course but they did make up some of the delay time so it was less than
half an hour late. I disembarked and had
to wait a bit for my luggage (they dropped out another flight from LAX at the
same time on the same conveyor) but it was not too long. I called to find the
Flightline van was waiting for me already. I got in. We picked up another
couple. We drove them to Dascomb Road then I got the ride the rest of the way
home. I got home at about 10:30pm.
The trip was a lot of fun though of course it is sad to have
to leave Daniela behind. I cannot wait for the day I will be bringing her home
with me instead. The only good news is
she will be in Asia with me for about a month when I am sent there to teach
classes.
The final set of pictures for this trip are located here.
No comments:
Post a Comment