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Yesterday was rather chaotic, with me doing errands (and getting lost due to making a wrong turn coming out of Old Bethpage post office... Bethpage would be one of the few parts of Nassau County I don't know at all! I realised my mistake when I hit Bethpage State Park. Only I didn't turn around properly either... doh... found South Oyster Bay Road in the end though. Nassau's main roads are laid out in a rough grid so if you make it to one of those, you can always find your way.)
My mother nagged me through the packing, we got stuck in traffic on the Belt and made it to the airport late. Because the Taurus had crappy cargo space, Carly and I drove the bags directly to the terminal while Neil took Aliza with him to return the rental car. We didn't check in till nearly 16:30 (for an 18:30 flight) and relaxed in the Clubhouse for a bit. at least none of my bags were overweight (yes, even with a 32kg UC limit I can overpack. You should have seen how much luggage we had. It was frightening. We've turned into one of those families returning from overseas family visits.) Then I discovered that the plastic bag with the diapers in it was missing from my bag!! Had wipes, had changing mat, no diapers. panic. Thank G-d the newsagents had small packs of Pampers. Size 3 only.. exactly right. I loudly thanked Him in the middle of the store. (Heathrow T3 has Boots, but nothing like that at Kennedy.) I didn't even care about being charged $10 for 13 diapers.
The flight was delayed leaving but was otherwise OK. The night flight service means you don't get a great meal leaving--I would have eaten in the Clubhouse (although the JFK one doesn't have as much choice as LHR) if I had known. Neil got the seat next to the bassinet next time and despite being assigned to 10G (8G is the bassinet seat) i got the guy in 9G to switch. We didn't even need to play pass the baby except for a little bit during the food. Once they turned down the cabin lights, we put her in the bassinet and she actually slept the whole flight!! So I got to unfold the bed and got a good 4 hours myself. Lovely. I was so proud that she was such a good baby :)
On landing, there was a screwup. unfortunately, because there were multiple babies in UC this time, they made us gate-check the buggy. The idiot BAA baggage handlers sent all the buggies down to Baggage Reclaim. We hung around for half an hour before Virgin staff managed to find out what they'd done. Naturally we were at one of the furthest stands. So we had to carry aliza and all our crap down to immigration. I felt so bad for the family next to us--they were connecting to another European flight. All their bags were checked through. Now they had to queue up at immigration and security, get their buggy at baggage reclaim, and go BACK through the security queue. They were already late for their flight because we were an hour late coming in--with all this they'd miss it. I was half tempted to give them our fast track security ticket since we got to go through the EU lane anyway. I should have told them to ask for one since it was a screw-up.
We got all our junk, needed _2_ luggage trolleys (!) (3 big suitcases, 1 little one, diaper bag, laptop bag, Neil's bag, car seat, bag from newsagents, Aliza's teddy & blankie), found our taxi, just got all the bags and us into a Peugeot 807 people carrier (!! again, would vow to ship things home except I did some of that this time [extra cloth diapers] and it ain't cheap, thank you USPS) and got home.
to heck with unpacking for now. Aliza has dozed off and I would like to do the same before dragging self to supermarket! (Bad thing about ocado: no Sunday deliveries.)
My mother nagged me through the packing, we got stuck in traffic on the Belt and made it to the airport late. Because the Taurus had crappy cargo space, Carly and I drove the bags directly to the terminal while Neil took Aliza with him to return the rental car. We didn't check in till nearly 16:30 (for an 18:30 flight) and relaxed in the Clubhouse for a bit. at least none of my bags were overweight (yes, even with a 32kg UC limit I can overpack. You should have seen how much luggage we had. It was frightening. We've turned into one of those families returning from overseas family visits.) Then I discovered that the plastic bag with the diapers in it was missing from my bag!! Had wipes, had changing mat, no diapers. panic. Thank G-d the newsagents had small packs of Pampers. Size 3 only.. exactly right. I loudly thanked Him in the middle of the store. (Heathrow T3 has Boots, but nothing like that at Kennedy.) I didn't even care about being charged $10 for 13 diapers.
The flight was delayed leaving but was otherwise OK. The night flight service means you don't get a great meal leaving--I would have eaten in the Clubhouse (although the JFK one doesn't have as much choice as LHR) if I had known. Neil got the seat next to the bassinet next time and despite being assigned to 10G (8G is the bassinet seat) i got the guy in 9G to switch. We didn't even need to play pass the baby except for a little bit during the food. Once they turned down the cabin lights, we put her in the bassinet and she actually slept the whole flight!! So I got to unfold the bed and got a good 4 hours myself. Lovely. I was so proud that she was such a good baby :)
On landing, there was a screwup. unfortunately, because there were multiple babies in UC this time, they made us gate-check the buggy. The idiot BAA baggage handlers sent all the buggies down to Baggage Reclaim. We hung around for half an hour before Virgin staff managed to find out what they'd done. Naturally we were at one of the furthest stands. So we had to carry aliza and all our crap down to immigration. I felt so bad for the family next to us--they were connecting to another European flight. All their bags were checked through. Now they had to queue up at immigration and security, get their buggy at baggage reclaim, and go BACK through the security queue. They were already late for their flight because we were an hour late coming in--with all this they'd miss it. I was half tempted to give them our fast track security ticket since we got to go through the EU lane anyway. I should have told them to ask for one since it was a screw-up.
We got all our junk, needed _2_ luggage trolleys (!) (3 big suitcases, 1 little one, diaper bag, laptop bag, Neil's bag, car seat, bag from newsagents, Aliza's teddy & blankie), found our taxi, just got all the bags and us into a Peugeot 807 people carrier (!! again, would vow to ship things home except I did some of that this time [extra cloth diapers] and it ain't cheap, thank you USPS) and got home.
to heck with unpacking for now. Aliza has dozed off and I would like to do the same before dragging self to supermarket! (Bad thing about ocado: no Sunday deliveries.)
tired
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