Monday, Monday, June 19, 2017

We arrived in Newark on Sunday night at about 10:40 p.m. (the Dublin flight had left at 10:20 p.m.). 

So Plan B was to get to Angie's house. I used the Uber app on my phone (wow the cell phone is like indispensable when traveling!) to order a ride.

By now it was almost midnight, but outside the terminal, where I was to meet my driver, it was 80 degrees. There was no trace of the bad weather that had delayed us.  

It was so funny to see all these people standing outside looking at their phones, waiting for their Uber/Lyft/or other drivers. The Uber and Lyft apps text you your driver's name, the kind of car they're driving, and their license plate.  It kind of reminded me of some kind of a sport or game, where you had to search for your matching elements.  

My guy showed up and off we went in his Camry. He was from Burkina Faso and was surprised I'd heard of it. I was like "Oh yeah, it's by Cote d'Ivoire." Thanks to Stephanie Davis for that info. He was a college student, driving at night to make money, but had never taken anyone to Teaneck before, so we got a little turned around a couple times, but we made it!

On Monday when Zoe and Maya woke up, they got a surprise --- Grammy!  We played with Play Dough and played in their beautiful backyard and read books and laughed and enjoyed one another.

Zoe

Maya

Marcus swinging.  Mom has gone in the house for a minute so he's not quite sure about me, I don't think.

I had the sound muted by mistake; but Zoe is wearing a tail from the Disney store, from a cat from the Aristocats and using her new fishing pole and dancing. She is a happy girl.

The beautiful guest room Angie makes for her guests and family. Very positive

About 4 p.m. we figured I should head for the airport for my 7:30 p.m. flight.  Since there were heavy thunderstorms, we decided we didn't want Angie driving me to the airport with the kids in the car so Angie ordered me a Lyft driver. This was my first time trying them.  They're similar to Uber but the app gives you a choice of what kind of vehicle you want. We asked for a "nice" vehicle, I think.  My driver arrived in 2 minutes driving a Cadillac Escalade. He was an experienced  driver and got us around some intense traffic and even more intense  rain and flash flooding.  He asked a couple times, "Are you sure your flight is going out? I could take you back to your daughter's house." But my United app kept saying my flight was on time. So he got me to the airport.

I got through security in Terminal C in a breeze. Then I got the news that the flight was delayed. 

I had a one-day pass to the United Club (a club in the airport that gives you free food and drink and places to charge your devices and get out of the crowded terminal), so thought I'd go wait in there, get some free food and drink, and charge my phone.  But I was met with a sign that they weren't accepting one-day passes that day. I'm thinking they were just massively overcrowded because of all the delays.  So they just were accepting their regular members. There are actually two United Clubs in Terminal C, but both had that sign out.

Out in the terminal, every few minutes you could hear a  gate agent saying something like, "Ladies and gentlemen, Flight 1234 to New Zealand has been rescheduled. It will now be leaving at 12 midnight (the time now being 5 p.m.)" And so on and so on. One gate agent said in a frustrated voice, "The equipment that we are supposed to fly on is on the ground in Boston. It was diverted to Boston because of the storm, so we will not be leaving anytime soon because the plane that you were supposed to get on is on the ground in Boston. Please  go sit down or just walk away because I have nothing else to tell you."

I decided to go have some supper in one of the many, many, many restaurants in the newly designed Terminal C. That was an interesting experience also because you order everything on an IPad. You order your meal, you pay for your meal, and they ask for your tip before you've ever met a human being. A human being does bring the food you ordered and sits it in front of you. I think our culture may have begun to perfect the art of serving food without any personal interaction whatsoever. Maybe this not a universal experience, but all throughout the terminal were all these people at their individual tables with their individual IPads.  It seemed magnified on this  crazy busy night.

Back at our gate, we found out that our original inbound plane, the one we were supposed to fly out on, had been diverted to Boston. Thankfully they found us a different inbound plane to embark, (arrived from China), but we had to wait for them to service it. So departure time now 10:00 p.m.

While I was waiting, I texted Angie an update, and she suggested I go get a massage and she would pay for it. So I walked from our gate, Gate 123, to Gate 92. It was kind of a long walk. (Out of curiosity, I looked online later to see if the distance I had walked that night. But I couldn't find it.) The massage place was booked for the night, so they said to try the kiosk at Gate 110. I walked over to Gate 110 and the girl there said she had time for a 10-minute chair massage. So I took it. It was awesome! Good idea if flying is stressing you out or all the sitting is getting to you. Or if you just want to feel good.

After my massage, I began the hike back to gate 123. As I was almost there, I saw our gate agent walking toward me. I said "Are you going home?" He said "No there's a gate change." I asked, What gate?" He said "Gate 110."  So I turned around and walked back to Gate 110. At that gate, a very small gate, there were two sets of passengers. First, all the passengers for our flight, United 23, originally scheduled to leave at 7:30 p.m. now leaving at 10:03 p.m. And a second set of passengers waiting for the flight to Dublin that was supposed to leave at 10 p.m. and was now leaving at 2:00 a.m. That was the flight that I was supposed to have caught the previous night. If only it had been delayed the previous night, I would have been in Ireland by now.... 

People for our flight started lining up to board an hour before they actually started boarding. Even though it was very close to 10:00p.m. we still had not boarded. The gate agent finally told us,"It is 95 degrees on the plane. I do not want you getting on that plane while it is so hot. So, after the pilot starts the plane and runs the air conditioning, we will let you on."

When we finally boarded, the plane was lovely. I had paid for Economy Comfort, which gives you 4 more inches of legroom. The plane had three rows of three seats each. In our row, there was no one sitting in the middle seat so it was very comfortable. If you are taller than 5 feet two inches and weigh over 120 pounds, I would recommend this choice for you.

When we landed, it was Tuesday.