Arriving and Kutz Camp
Trip Start
Jun 12, 2008
1
10
Trip End
Jul 21, 2008
New York City, New York, United States
Thursday, June 12, 2008
My flight into Washington was delayed leaving - usual Heathrow queues - leaving me talking to an American girl in the departure lounge, we exchanged stories and we discovered that although we were going to different places from Washington our connecting flights were leaving at the same time - we spent some time on the plane chatting and I found out that she had spent a term at the University of East Anglia in Norwich! Anyway we arrived into Washington with only 1 hour to connect to our flights. I managed to fight my through a hoard of people shouting 'I'm British and I only have an hour until my flight!' Surprisingly it worked very well and I found myself to front of the immigration queue. I had no problems getting through only to find chaos on the other side. I knew I had to claim my baggage before my next flight but the reclaim hall was basically different piles of luggage arranged by flight - and I had to barge through about one hundred people queuing for customs just to pick up my suitcase.
I then joined the longest ever queue for customs, so at this point I rang my aunt who was picking me up from JFK to let her know that I would more than likely miss my flight and I told I would let her know more as soon as I did. I finally got through customs (for once in my life I picked the quicker queue) to find an even slower queue for security. By this time I had half an hour before I had to be on my flight and I wasn't the only one, about 50% of the people in the queue with me were also cutting it very fine to catch their flight and despite much asking and pleading there was no way to push through to the front. I was extremely unimpressed with the staff at the airport on how they dealt with this - especially as one of the people in our line was 8 months pregnant with a 2 year old daughter and another was an unaccompanied minor who was on the verge of tears.
So yes I missed my flight, by about 10 minutes! Finally caught up with my new friend, who had also missed her flight, to see if we could be put on the next flights out. We spent 10 minutes lost in the airport looking for customer services before we managed to find someone who told us where to go (3rd person asked). The airline was really unfriendly, unsympathetic, and I was told that the next flight out was in five hours and I would be put on standby! We tried to claim for some food vouchers and after much pleading my friend managed to get some - I was speaking to another person who would not give them to me! Lucky for me my friend's new flight was also five hours later so we spent the time getting to know each other, drinking coffee, having a good dinner and saying how wonderful and friendly the UK was compared to this place!
My new flight left JFK 10pm which is 3am England time so I was exhausted and for the first time in life I got upgraded to economy plus - which meant extra leg room - and was some what wasted on me as I was asleep straight after take off and woke up again to find us making our descent in to New York - which was amazing with all the lights. Amazing my uncle and aunt picked me up form the airport, despite it being close to midnight NY time, and took me to their apartment to sleep as it was much closer than my hotel. Their love and kindness has made me feel so much better and I go to camp this afternoon feeling a little less nervous than if I had stayed at the hotel.
I plan to spend my morning going to the bank to set up a bank account and then making my way to the airport where the coach will pick us up. I am really excited about it and can't wait to meet everyone.
Thats my story so far - sorry if its long and dull - but I have mainly used to it to vent a little (or a lot). Goodbye from Bronx, NY.
