ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

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  NEW YORK, New York, United States
Friday, December 9, 2005

Dec 9, 2005 Our long-awaited departure day has finally arrived. We're on our way to Egypt! The first leg of our journey began this morning at 9:30 a.m. with our ride to the Metro station with our Volunteer Transportation service/ Medical Doctor-Anita's sister, Rene, who happened to be visiting Atlanta from Nashville for her son, Justin's 21st birthday yesterday. As we rode through the morning traffic, Rene quickly quizzed us on our preparations for the trip-did we receive the appropriate inoculations? Did we pack antibiotics for diarrhea? She proceeded to explain why we had no need for a Hep A shot, but rather needed the series of Hep B shots. Not only that, but she gave us a severe warning to look out for beg bugs! Yuck, a nasty thought considering how many strange beds we'll be sleeping in over the next 21 days. Needless to say, I was evaluating whether we should go on this trip. Once at the MARTA station, I asked Rene to take a picture of us departing, only to discover that the batteries in the digital camera hadn't been recharged the night before. Note to self, never let that happen again!

Upon arriving at the airport, we headed straight towards the automated Delta ticket counter for check-in to make things a little easier. And wouldn't you know, as we placed our fancy new red luggage onto the scale we were informed that one bag was over weight by 3lbs., and the cost would be an additional $25. I immediately thought of a phrase my nephew, Darrow often says in response to ridiculous situations - "You must have fallen and bumped your head!" I had to resist saying that to the Delta agent behind the counter. So instead, we kindly removed our luggage from the scale and moved to the side to shift some things around. As I opened the luggage I found that the overweight problem was most likely due the plethora of snacks we had packed for our journey, compliments of our sweet friend Karen, in San Diego, who sent us a care package from Trader Joe's just yesterday. We were loaded down with trail mix, almonds, dried fruit and candy - enough goodies to last us the entire 3 weeks. So we loaded Anita's carry-on backpack with the extra snacks and moved our toiletry back to another suitcase. That solved the weight problem and we were on our way.

At the departure gate, we awaited the boarding call and hoped the agent would announce the opportunity for ticketed passengers to give up their seats since the plane was full. We have learned the value of being "bumped", and secretly hoped we would have the opportunity to do so on this short trip from Atlanta to New York since we had no pressing plans for the evening. Our flight to Cairo isn't until tomorrow evening and we have loads of time. Instead, the announcement we heard was that the aircraft had experienced some pre-flight mechanical problem and that our flight would have to be shifted to another aircraft. We were informed that this slight change would set us back about an hour and a half. Despite the grumblings of some of the other passengers, we took it all in stride and decided to have some lunch.

As we approached the food court, Anita noticed a Popeye's Chicken and I couldn't resist an old New Orleans favorite. I couldn't believe that my usual meal -- three wings and a coke, with some read beans and rice and a small fruit cup came up to $10.97. Man, they really know how to jack up the prices in the airport. We grabbed our meal to go and headed back to the gate only to find the area empty of all passengers. Where the heck did everybody go? No need to panic, they simply changed gates on us. Thanks goodness it was only one gate away. So we ate our lunch while waiting to board the flight.

After a short nap during the 2-hour flight, we arrived at JFK International Airport and headed for baggage claim. I was reminded that I hadn't been in this airport since I took a trip to Paris 15 years ago. The airport looked old and dingy, and I was surprised at how tight the environment was. So many people from so many different backgrounds were all around us. I guess that's what you expect from a truly international airport. Once at baggage claim we waited for our luggage - and waited, and waited, and waited. Suddenly the conveyor belt came to a halt, leaving us and about 20 other passengers looking around like lost souls. Where's our luggage? We didn't want to think the worst, but as the crowd thinned, we suddenly became aware that our luggage had not arrived. So we headed with the other disappointed passengers to the baggage claim customer service counter to find out what the heck was going on.

While in line, I kept thinking to myself what we should do in this type of situation. I was reminded of a saying that my sister, Jane has in her office, "Attitude is EVERYTHING!" I asked Anita if she could recall the phrase, and she said she couldn't remember. So I reminded her that it's all about your attitude. And what a phrase to remember as we stood in line and listened to the complaints of the other passengers. I pondered some lessons of what to do in situations like this:

1. Hold your peace

2. Keep your mouth closed

3. Don't get caught up in other people's problems

4. Remember, you planned for the worst but hope for the very best

I realized that our perspective was slightly different from some of the other passengers - we weren't in any hurry to catch another flight and we had planned to stay overnight in New York prior to our departure to Cairo. So that helped us maintain our peace. But as we listened to the others we realized that they had some serious challenges with this unanticipated turn of events. Standing behind us was a woman from South Africa, who was on her way back home. Her flight was scheduled to depart within 2 hours and she had no luggage. She was traveling from Atlanta with a short stop in New York, headed over to KLM Airline to board a plane for an 11-hour flight to Amsterdam with a 3 hour layover, and then on to a plane for another 11 hour flight to South Africa. Man, she was really in a jam. We didn't feel so bad after hearing her dilemma.

We wished her the best and then approached the customer service counter to make our report. We were very careful not to refer to our luggage as "lost", but rather misplaced or that it just didn't arrive with us. The agent assured us that the luggage would arrive on the next flight from Atlanta, scheduled to arrive within the hour, and that our bags would be delivered to our hotel. I thought that was pretty cool - valet service! So after realizing that we didn't have to haul our luggage to the hotel, we proceeded to the hotel shuttle area to await our ride. But first we had to hop on the Air Train - a monorail system within JFK Airport that transports passengers to all gates and parking areas.

So we got on board the Air Train and quickly realized we were headed in the wrong direction. No problem, we're flexible. We just hopped off and got back on going the opposite direction to board the hotel shuttle. Here's another surprise - we had to wait outside in the cold! You would think that a city that gets as cold as New York would have an indoor waiting area for shuttle pick up. But not so. We waited outside in 34-degree weather with the other tired travelers to board our shuttle van.

The ride to the hotel was short. I'm glad I booked a hotel just 2 miles from the airport. After checking in, we decided to brave the elements and go out to dinner at a restaurant that the front desk girl instructed us was only about 2 blocks away - 2 icy cold blocks, as far as I'm concerned. We figured our luggage would be waiting for us at the hotel when we returned from dinner - our reward for a long day's journey. The meal was delicious and the ambiance enjoyable, and thankfully, the walk back to the hotel didn't seem quite as cold as the walk to the restaurant. I guess a belly full of warm food really does have its benefits.

Unfortunately, our luggage hadn't made it to the hotel by the time we got back from dinner. So we decided to call Delta to find out what was up. We checked on the baggage until 12:30 a.m., speaking to no less than five different people until we finally got a supervisor on the line, who insisted that he would call me back before the night was over with some information. And he did. The bags were scheduled to arrive on the last flight of the day at 12:44 a.m. So instead of having them delivered to the hotel the next morning and taking the chance that they wouldn't arrive before our 1 p.m. late check out time, he offered to instruct the JFK baggage department to hold our luggage at the airport to ensure we would be able to retrieve it for our trip to Cairo tomorrow. I guess that will work. We've decided that we really have just about everything we need - a warm bed to sleep in, our toothbrushes (which Anita packed in her backpack for some reason), and each other. What more do we really need? So we'll see what happens in the morning. I think we're ready for a good nights sleep.

Final recap:

Metro ride to the airport: $3.50

Charge for overweight bag: $25

Spending the night in a hotel room 2 miles from JFK airport without our luggage, which didn't arrive with us the night before leaving the country for the trip of a lifetime: PRICELESS!

Stay tune, I'm sure this isn't the last time we will have to remember that ole saying " It's all about your Attitude"