Laying Over

Rose Bud, preventing lumpy pony tail.

All of our flights were great, fast and on time.  Our first flight was only 20 min! RB took a ton of pictures of the sunset and the clouds, but I can't upload them to my computer.  I have the wrong cable for her camera (I thought they'd be the same). Edited to add: Luckily, Faye brought a card reader and once (between the 3 of us) we figured out how to work it, we can get RB's and her pictures)

Photos by RB.  Ignore the timestamp.  They were really taken today.

Then we were stuck waiting for a gate to open up at O'Hare for 40 min.  Fortunately, we had enough time between flights to sit on the tarmac that long.

Once we finally deplaned in O'Hare, RB and I zipped right along to our next gate, which was already boarding.  We had just enough time to "rest" and get in line.  This was a cushy, leather-seated plane!  We sat in our row with a sweet little old lady coming from Jamaica.  We were served a lovely beverage, and in 1 hr and 42 minutes we were on the ground again.

We found baggage right away and called Faye to find out how to get to the hotel shuttle.  She had already done it, so she was able to walk us through it.

Let me say, I will be so glad to get these bags to India!  We have two wheeled suitcases (that's one, two, count them, two suitcases with wheels, not two-wheeled suitcases, although, technically I guess our suitcases do have two wheels, so that really means that we have 2 two-wheeled suitcases) ANYWHO...

... 2 of our suitcases have wheels and 2 of them don't.  So we bungeed the non-wheeled to the wheeled, which works great.  Mostly.  We have to refine our system a little.  Escalators are tricky.

So anyway, I'll be glad when we no longer have these suitcases to drag around.

Fast forward to the hotel. (otherwise this post could get even longer and more boring)

Faye was there waiting for us.  We got right on the internet to figure out our plan for going to see the Statue of Liberty on Sunday during our layover.

Let's just fast forward some more.  Our options were a $60 cab ride (incl. tip & tolls) EACH WAY,  2 1/2 hours on 3 different forms of public transportation (not to mention that we couldn't find a schedule to save our lives) or renting a car.  Seriously, we considered this last option.  For $42 we could have rented a little car from the airport and driven to the Statue.  Well, you have to take a ferry to the Statue, so we would have driven to the ferry landing.

Probably fortunately, at this point, the internet stopped connecting.  It was 11 pm somewhere and we weren't ever able to reserve the car.

I tossed and turned all night worrying about the alarm going off in the morning (I hate alarms) and about what to do about the Statue.  RB spent half the night smothering me (Auntie will know what I mean).  I'm glad we'll have twin beds in India!  Faye dreamed we ended up in Egypt instead of India.  There was also the hourly train whistle, random doors slamming, and Faye kicking the remote into the wall in her sleep.  We didn't sleep real well.


At 5:30 (am) we all woke up and decided to skip the Statue.  Then we slept in til 8:30.  We had a nice, not too expensive breakfast at the hotel restaurant.  RB asked the waitress how many pancakes you got and how big they were.  The waitress replied, "Well, you get 3 slices." 

Rose Bud's sliced pancakes

Rose Bud working on homework. She had most of her 2 week's worth done before we even left.

Faye, preventing malaria

So, our plan for the rest of the day (we've managed to fritter away quite a bit already!) is to check out late, take the shuttle to the airport, try to check in our baggage so we don't have to drag it around, and maybe ride the AirTrain for a couple of hours.  Then we plan to be scanned, x-rayed, wanded and patted down.  We'll meet the rest of the crew when their flight comes in and off we go.

Then my plan is to sleep.