March 21st dawned early, but only because it was the first day of spring. As far as I was concerned, the exact time of sunrise was moot; I'd set my phone to go off at 5 am. And it did, and I arose after a less than restful night. I always have a hard time getting to sleep the night before a trip, and this time it was made worse by the whole toilet-article boondoggle. And my restless slumbers were punctuated by Duffy, who barked intermittently at unfamiliar noises only he could hear.
We left the Ocean Park by 6; it was an easy drive to the airport. The JetBlue terminal at SFO was pretty somnolent at 6 am. There were a few other travelers wandering around; one of them struck up a conversation with me as we searched for the luggage check-in counter. It turned out that it wasn't open yet. I wasn't awfully hungry, but I knew that JetBlue didn't serve meals, so I decided I'd better get something resembling breakfast while I was still on the ground. I got a mocha, fruit salad, and a couple of bagels at a coffee shop. I stowed one of the bagels in my small carry-on for future reference and ate and drank the rest while waiting for the counter to open.
While I'm sitting there waiting, shall we review my appearance? I was a study in black, for the most part: pants, shoes, long-sleeved t-shirt, travel vest (we'll come back to that,) and hooded micro fleece jacket (that too.) Not much make-up - a bit of powder and blush, but no lipstick or mascara, since those had been stowed in the sorely-missed and much-regretted white bag. One black bag, the one I've been referring to as my small carry-on; I usually use it as a gym bag. One rolling book-pack from ll bean; I'd read that those made good carry-ons, and they're pretty cheap. One giant purple duffel, as mentioned earlier, also with wheels. I wasn't exactly traveling light, but between the wheels and the shoulder straps I was managing everything ok. I'd stowed my wallet in my travel vest, along with an envelope full of cash for the rent on my bedroom in Williamsburg and my boarding pass. I tried not to keep feeling my pockets, but I did anyway.
After a while, a couple of attendants opened up the check-in counter. Since I had my boarding pass already, I got to be third in line. I showed my pass and id, heaved the purple duffel onto the scale, gave it a fond glance of farewell, and went off in search of my gate.
This was the first time I'd flown out of SFO since they rebuilt/remodeled/modernized it. It's still confusing, but less so than it used to be. It has a bit of a chilly feel, but there's some nice art. I still like Oakland better, but JetBlue doesn't fly out of Oakland, or at least not to New York.
I found my gate. (I had to go downstairs to get to it, which seemed counterintuitive.) By now it was about 7, with boarding to begin at 7:30. I settled myself in an uncomfortable plastic chair by the window and tried to read, but couldn't, so I gazed out the window and stole covert glances at my fellow passengers, trying to decide who I'd like to be seated next to.
I stood up when they started boarding, even though I knew they'd board from back to front and my seat was in row 7. Once aboard, I had no trouble finding a place to stow my pack - I always worry about that a little when I'm among the last to board.
My seat-mate turned out to be a young woman who fell asleep even before take-off. I envied her that, although the take-off was actually worth staying awake for: a gorgeous view of the bay and the Golden Gate on a perfectly clear, cloudless blue morning. After that, the scenery declined considerably in interest, especially once we were past the Sierras. I was able to more or less keep track of what we were flying over thanks to the google-map channel that was one of our inflight entertainment choices. I noted with interest that Kansas seems to be covered with very large brown polka-dots at this time of year; probably something to do with irrigation patterns. I toggled back and forth between the google map and a series of women stand-up comics on A&E. Each woman's show lasted about an hour, and they took me through the flight fairly painlessly. We ended up arriving at JFK at 4 pm, half an hour early.
I called John as soon as we were allowed to turn our phones back on, to let him know I was safely on the ground. A few minutes later, Laura and Jimi called to say that they were on their way to the airport but were hung up in traffic. I told them not to worry - I'd only just landed, and I was sure it would take a while to disembark and collect my purple duffel.
It didn't take as long as I thought, even though I made a quick detour to the bathroom before heading down to the baggage claim area. My purple duffel was among the first pieces to be disgorged from the belly of the beast, so I had some leisure for people-watching while I waited for Laura and Jimi. There was an especially interesting family: a well-dressed woman with a fur coat tossed casually across her luggage cart, her parents, her husband, her three children, and her adorable puppy in a puppy stroller. They were waiting for a skycap to help them maneuver their baggage into a cab, I guess - the husband kept wandering off and coming back to report his lack of success. One of the children, a little girl, had spilled something on her clothes during the flight; the woman asked her mother to change her, but the mother let on not to hear, so the woman had to do it herself. Then she sent the little girl off to "get in trouble with your brothers," who were having fun crashing luggage carts into each other. I suspected that this particular scenario wasn't going to end well, but I'll never know; Laura and Jimi called to say they were outside.
We drove off to Jimi's parents' house in Queens, where a lavish feast awaited us. It was the first time I met Jimi's parents, who go by Nancy and Mike, their "American" names. Their house is a brick Tudor-style (I think) from the 30s, with many nice period touches inside and out. I got to visit the prosciuttos hanging on the clothesline in the back yard - I've heard a lot about those prosciuttos, and a couple of days later I got to taste them. Nancy and Mike are very sweet, and the dinner they'd prepared was wonderful. Lots of seafood, since it was Good Friday (I'd forgotten that) - calamari, prawns, salmon, and whitefish, along with asparagus, salad, and Nancy's famous home-made raviolis. We had a home-baked sweet bread and tiramisu from an Italian bakery for dessert, along with chamomile tea. It was the start of a major theme of my visit: eating. More particularly: eating new (to me) stuff. Not that the above-mentioned items sound particularly exotic, but they were all prepared Croatian-style, and had a subtly different flavor. For example, the asparagus was dressed with Croatian olive oil, which is a little different from what I usually have here, and very good.
After dinner, Jimi drove us back to Williamsburg - his parents had generously lent them their car until Sunday. We stopped first at their apartment, and I saw my first Hasidim walking up and down their block - more on that later, too. Then we drove up to the place I was staying - Josh's apartment at Bedford and Grand.
Jimi and Laura pointed out some interesting/useful/good aspects of the immediate neighborhood, but I was really too tired to take much in. Josh's building was not awfully prepossessing on the outside - not bad, but a bit worn. We hauled ourselves and my luggage up the five flights of stairs - Jimi, bless him, dealt with the purple duffel, and Laura, who'd gotten the keys the day before, let us in. Josh wasn't there, but he arrived a few minutes later. Laura and Jimi headed back to their place - by then it was past midnight, and Josh showed me around the place.
There wasn't actually an awful lot to show - it's a fairly small apartment, although comfortable, functional and well laid-out. Josh is an excellent host - very considerate. He ended up doing the vacation-rental thing as a way to be able to afford living in a decent place in the neighborhood after he got condo'd out of his old place, and he'd obviously put a lot of thought into making it work well both for himself and his guests. He'd just got back from a seminar, and was on his way out again. I felt a bit abandoned after he left, all by myself in a strange place in a strange city, which told me it was a good thing I'd opted to stay with him rather than by myself or in a hotel far away from L and J.
Have I mentioned that I was exhausted? I was exhausted. I dug out my toothbrush, toothpaste, and nightgown, cleaned up, and fell into bed, ready to collapse into a deep, sound sleep.
Circumstances, however, weren't altogether cooperative. For one thing, I was all by myself in a strange place in a strange city, with no dogs or husbands to share my bed. For another thing, it was Friday night in Williamsburg, or by that time, Saturday morning, which amounts to the same thing: time to party! Lots of people were out and about on the street, and lots of vehicles, and they made a certain amount of noise, and it was a kind of noise I'm not used to any more. So it took me a while to fall asleep, although I did eventually. . .
And awoke at about 6:45, to pigeons cooing outside my window, and sun streaming into my eyes . . . but that will have to wait until Part IV.
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