Day .5: Austin to Cairo "Big ol' jet airliner, don't carry me too far away..." - The Steve Miller Band
4/13/07 AUS-DFW-JFK-CAI
And so began my airplane day.
I'd only gotten 3 hours of sleep since I had to finish cleaning up my house. I just can't come home to a filthy house. That'll almost ruin a vacation. Anyway, JQ was snoozing it up in the guestroom, and I was watching (but not really) Her Alibi as I cleaned up my abode.
Jen was generous enough to offer to carry my happy butt to the airport at the asscrack of dawn so I can make my 7:45 flight to DFW. She has this thing about people paying to park at the airport when it averages around $7 a day. Saved me $70 bucks...Jen was definitely getting a cool souvenir.
The night before I had a conversation with my traveling buddy Kerrie, who was going to meet me at JFK (from Houston), about the wisdom of checking baggage. I guess I didn't have high hopes for the Egyptian airport. Kerrie travels quite a bit, and she's never had any problems with her luggage getting lost. Just the same, she suggested I carry on at least one change of clothes as well as any essentials in my backpack. Okay, no problem.
I've packed my massive traveling backpack (which I bought brand new on ebay for $4, thank you very much) inside this 30 inch long red duffel I'd bought along so I'd have an extra bag for souvenirs. JQ drops me at the airport, I check my bags, and am off to DFW. It's a quick flight. I decide I want to have an unhealthy breakfast before I go, so I go to Mickey D's and grab a sausage biscuit and some water.
Two hours later, I'm on the plane to JFK. As soon as my ass hits the seat, I pull out my earplugs and mask, and I am out like a light. Next thing I know, we're descending into JFK. Cool, I missed most of the flight.
So I get a text message from Kerrie that she's on her way to baggage claim; her flight from H-Town landed around the same time as mine. We were in different terminals, but she landed at the same one where we were taking off on Egypt Air. Now if you've never been to The City, JFK is a huge freakin' airport. I got on one of the trams, and damn near went to Jamaica, Queens. Good thing I was actually paying attention.
So I go collect my bag(s), and make my way to the Egypt Air counter. I'm looking around, but I don't see Kerrie anywhere. I call her cell...yeah, she's at the Continental Baggage Services because they've lost her luggage. How in the hell do they lose a bag on a direct flight from Houston? On top of that, she's an Elite member, so her bags are supposed to be guaranteed to be first off the flight. I knew that conversation from the night before would come back to bite one of us in the ass. Better her than me.
I only say that cuz Kerrie handles stuff like that better than I do. I would've raised such hell, they probably would've called security and I never would've gotten to go on my dream vacation. That, and I just prefer when bad things happen, they don't happen to me.
So we check in on Egypt Air (Continental promised they'd have her bags on the next Egypt Air flight, which only flies out once a day), and dawdle around JFK for a couple of hours. Kerrie buys a toothbrush and a $5 stick of deodorant, we split a not so impressive personal pizza (we're in New York for crying out loud, y'all can do better), and wait.
When it's time to board, I notice this woman, who kinda but not really resembled my grandmother. Only thing is, Mama Jean is about 20 years older, and would never wander around braless. Okay, I don't know if she was braless or just wearing one that didn't provide a hell of a lot of support. The end result was the same though...and not sexy at all.
So we're flying to Cairo in a 777. We were the only two on our middle row, so we were able to stretch out a bit. Egypt Air passed out socks, a sleep mask, and headphones to everyone, which was cool. I've never received socks on a plane before.
When they served us dinner, the first thing I noticed was (what I thought was) a bit of an excessive amount of carbs. There were like three rolls, some rice and some potatoes. I had read something about most Egyptians only having meat every couple of weeks because they can't afford it. So I shrug it off and eat what I can.
For the in-flight entertainment, they showed that Hillary Swank movie...I don't know what the name of it was but it was another "see the white lady come teach something to the poor minority students and help them overcome adversity" movies. I didn't watch it, I listened to my mp3 player instead.
Kerrie and I take an Ambien and try to get some sleep. I must be the only person on the planet that Ambien doesn't work for. At the most, I'll sleep 4 hours (hell, I took one last night, which explains why I'm blogging at 3 something in the morning). So I sleep off and on throughout our 12 hour flight. At one point, I woke up and they were showing Casino Royale.
A couple of hours later: breakfast. Once again, with the carbs. We had a croissant, 2 rolls, and a slice of white bread...all on one tray. They threw in some crazy cow, or whatever that triangular cheese is, some jelly, and some fruit cocktail that looked to be about two weeks old. I had a feeling carb heavy meals would be a recurring theme.
Next stop, Cairo!
4/13/07 AUS-DFW-JFK-CAI
And so began my airplane day.
I'd only gotten 3 hours of sleep since I had to finish cleaning up my house. I just can't come home to a filthy house. That'll almost ruin a vacation. Anyway, JQ was snoozing it up in the guestroom, and I was watching (but not really) Her Alibi as I cleaned up my abode.
Jen was generous enough to offer to carry my happy butt to the airport at the asscrack of dawn so I can make my 7:45 flight to DFW. She has this thing about people paying to park at the airport when it averages around $7 a day. Saved me $70 bucks...Jen was definitely getting a cool souvenir.
The night before I had a conversation with my traveling buddy Kerrie, who was going to meet me at JFK (from Houston), about the wisdom of checking baggage. I guess I didn't have high hopes for the Egyptian airport. Kerrie travels quite a bit, and she's never had any problems with her luggage getting lost. Just the same, she suggested I carry on at least one change of clothes as well as any essentials in my backpack. Okay, no problem.
I've packed my massive traveling backpack (which I bought brand new on ebay for $4, thank you very much) inside this 30 inch long red duffel I'd bought along so I'd have an extra bag for souvenirs. JQ drops me at the airport, I check my bags, and am off to DFW. It's a quick flight. I decide I want to have an unhealthy breakfast before I go, so I go to Mickey D's and grab a sausage biscuit and some water.
Two hours later, I'm on the plane to JFK. As soon as my ass hits the seat, I pull out my earplugs and mask, and I am out like a light. Next thing I know, we're descending into JFK. Cool, I missed most of the flight.
So I get a text message from Kerrie that she's on her way to baggage claim; her flight from H-Town landed around the same time as mine. We were in different terminals, but she landed at the same one where we were taking off on Egypt Air. Now if you've never been to The City, JFK is a huge freakin' airport. I got on one of the trams, and damn near went to Jamaica, Queens. Good thing I was actually paying attention.
So I go collect my bag(s), and make my way to the Egypt Air counter. I'm looking around, but I don't see Kerrie anywhere. I call her cell...yeah, she's at the Continental Baggage Services because they've lost her luggage. How in the hell do they lose a bag on a direct flight from Houston? On top of that, she's an Elite member, so her bags are supposed to be guaranteed to be first off the flight. I knew that conversation from the night before would come back to bite one of us in the ass. Better her than me.
I only say that cuz Kerrie handles stuff like that better than I do. I would've raised such hell, they probably would've called security and I never would've gotten to go on my dream vacation. That, and I just prefer when bad things happen, they don't happen to me.
So we check in on Egypt Air (Continental promised they'd have her bags on the next Egypt Air flight, which only flies out once a day), and dawdle around JFK for a couple of hours. Kerrie buys a toothbrush and a $5 stick of deodorant, we split a not so impressive personal pizza (we're in New York for crying out loud, y'all can do better), and wait.
When it's time to board, I notice this woman, who kinda but not really resembled my grandmother. Only thing is, Mama Jean is about 20 years older, and would never wander around braless. Okay, I don't know if she was braless or just wearing one that didn't provide a hell of a lot of support. The end result was the same though...and not sexy at all.
So we're flying to Cairo in a 777. We were the only two on our middle row, so we were able to stretch out a bit. Egypt Air passed out socks, a sleep mask, and headphones to everyone, which was cool. I've never received socks on a plane before.
When they served us dinner, the first thing I noticed was (what I thought was) a bit of an excessive amount of carbs. There were like three rolls, some rice and some potatoes. I had read something about most Egyptians only having meat every couple of weeks because they can't afford it. So I shrug it off and eat what I can.
For the in-flight entertainment, they showed that Hillary Swank movie...I don't know what the name of it was but it was another "see the white lady come teach something to the poor minority students and help them overcome adversity" movies. I didn't watch it, I listened to my mp3 player instead.
Kerrie and I take an Ambien and try to get some sleep. I must be the only person on the planet that Ambien doesn't work for. At the most, I'll sleep 4 hours (hell, I took one last night, which explains why I'm blogging at 3 something in the morning). So I sleep off and on throughout our 12 hour flight. At one point, I woke up and they were showing Casino Royale.
A couple of hours later: breakfast. Once again, with the carbs. We had a croissant, 2 rolls, and a slice of white bread...all on one tray. They threw in some crazy cow, or whatever that triangular cheese is, some jelly, and some fruit cocktail that looked to be about two weeks old. I had a feeling carb heavy meals would be a recurring theme.
Next stop, Cairo!
Labels: Vacation
posted by Shalonn at 2:00 PM
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