dream out loud

It has been raining for about 6 days and it’s grey and yucky here. I am still fighting a cold and all of this makes me feel a touched depressed. Tomorrow, I am going to Nanjing for the weekend. Photos and stories to come…

I have been getting a little homesick lately, which is reminding me that I never wrote about my trip home. I had a great week and a bit in NY/NJ but after I returned, I felt a bit lost. I kept referring to my return to China as “when I go home…” but here, I was “at home.” My heart was very much still in NY (I actually felt physical pain visiting my apartment…) yet in the past 6 months, I have grown so close to people and places, that are in China. I felt a strange pull towards both now and am in the middle. Both feel close to me, yet I don’t really fully belong to either.

In any case, a brief timeline of how I spent my Chinese New Year Break:

My first full day, Tuesday, I went on a shopping spree at Target, then fell asleep late afternoon, owing to jetlag.

Wednesday. It snowed overnight into morning, which turned into rain, so it was a slushy day. I had a really nice visit with my friend who has a little baby, born December 24. She was such a cutie!! Then I had dinner with two of my closest friends, one of whom brought her one a half year old. She is growing up to be such a big girl with such definite opinions, which she lets you know! Then two of us went to an Andrew Bird concert. It was amazing! I even called myself because I can get the messages in wav format. They sound crappy but I enjoy having them on my computer.

Thursday. I wandered around my old haunts at Union Square and felt really comfortable and happy. I did a lot of random shopping for things, including Whole Foods. I spent way too much time and went a little overboard at Barnes and Noble. I had a really nice day. It was good to be by myself in NY.

Friday. I went to Trinity (where I taught for the past two school years) around 10:30, visited with friends, had lunch with them. I got completely mobbed by kids!! There was, I think, a group hug of about 20 children, first in a classroom, then another classroom, then in the dining hall. After lunch, I left and took an expensive cab (because I was short on time) to Riverdale (where I taught for three years before Trinity.) At both schools, I suprised people… and they were surprised! It was fun. At Riverdale, I also got massive group hugs, lots of fun. I was in shock, because I taught Kindergarten two consecutive years, then moved up to first grade with one group – so my kiddies were either 4th or 5th graders. They were huge!! I felt soooo proud of them and how they turned out. Some were so sweet, and happy to see me, and polite! It was hard to leave them.

Saturday. My friend Julie threw a brunch in honor of my and another friend’s NY visit. It was soooo great! Waffles, quiche, fruit, cookies… she goes overboard when hosting.

Sunday. I had brunch with Natasha at Henry’s, kind of a neighborhood haunt (she lives 6 blocks from where my place is) We people-watched all the New Yorkers having Sunday brunch… all stereotypical. Sadly, I was too full to visit Silver Moon bakery across the street. We took a walk and checked out one of my favorite bookstores, Morningside Bookshop. I went to Soho afterwards and met with my friend Linda at Spring Street Natural

Wednesday. I was up early, checked into my flight, went through security, all without a hitch. My flight from LaGuardia to Chicago was completely full, because the two flights earlier that morning had been canceled, for whatever reason. They were even offering people to go on the next flight for a $300 travel voucher. Oh, how I wish I had taken that.

The flight was supposed to go at 7:55, but they boarded us super early, to resolve that whole issue of taking volunteers and bumping people up, etc. So we were just sitting there for the longest time, and finally started taxi’ing at like 8:10. I thought it a bit odd because they never got on the PA system to welcome us and tell us to turn off electronics, seat belts, seat backs upright, etc. Then we started moving and I fell asleep. I was in the last row and the equipment was loud!! I woke up all of a sudden because we landed. I was really confused and asked the woman next to me what was going on. She said we had to make an emergency landing. Where were we??? JFK. What?

Clearly I was not going to make it to Chicago on time. What about my connecting flight to Shanghai? How do I find a driver to pick me up at the airport if I can’t contact this one? I couldn’t possibly take the bus with two large suitcases and a carry-on one. I quickly flagged a flight attendant and asked her; she told me that as soon as we get to the gate, talk to a ticketing agent and have them book me to Shanghai some other way, from JFK. No worries.

Apparently the pilot noticed some mechanical failure and made an emergency landing at JFK because they have a longer emergency runway. He said we had an overweight flight (I have never heard of that) The flight attendant said that in all her years of flying, she had never made an emergency landing. So I guess there was something serious. People had a good sense of humor and someone actually commented that no one was impatient or panicking, which was weird. This guy near me said, “Better to be at JFK than in the Hudson.”

Ugghh… not so easy. We wait about 15 minutes to park at the gate and I suppose set up the walkway. We get into the airport and people are like vultures on the 3 poor employees at that gate. It seems like what ever flight was departing from there was delayed. (Which is probably why we got their gate anyway)

Someone comes on the PA system and says that anyone on our flight needing assistance with connecting flights should go to the ticketing desk near baggage claim. A bunch of us go in that direction. There is no ticketing desk, just THE ticketing and check-in desk. So all of us are just competing for time with other people checking into their normal flight.

This guy in my same dilemma flags down a wandering AA employee and tries to ask for help. Bless her soul, she does try to help but the people at the ticketing desk say we just have to go back to LaGuardia like everyone else. This poor woman actually apologized and told us to have a nice day, and she was not Canadian.

The next few moments were a blur because I was super stressed about the several uncertainties at hand. They told us to get our luggage and then come back to the check-counter to figure it out. I went downstairs to wait at the baggage carousel. It was taking forever, and actually was not that bad, considering it was an added thing that had to be taken care of by the baggage handlers. JFK had some random employees mulling around saying that there would be AA representatives to answer questions. There weren’t any until much later, when two “supervisors” showed up and said that everyone should take the bus back to LaGuardia. When I told him that I’d miss my connecting flight and wouldn’t be able to get on it until the next day, he actually suggested that I go to Chicago and wait. He said they might be able to put me on Air China or another airline. Really?? I told him I just would rather go home and wait a day instead of do that.

I was calling everyone to complain and reduce stress… and a friend made a really good suggestion, that if there wasn’t anyone to answer questions, I should call them. I did just that and was able to talk to a super nice lady who agreed with me, she checked flights and suggested that it was better for me to overnight it in NY rather than Chicago. So she rebooked me on tomorrow’s flight. Then my poor dad had to pick me up again. Good thing as soon as he found out, he went home instead of to work. I am home now, and will arrive in China on Friday at about 3pm local time.

I asked her to reroute me from Newark, which is an easier drive from my parents’ house. But it meant that my flight was at 6:05am! I’d be up at about 3, in the car about 3:30, at the airport by 4.

About a day later, I was in my Suzhou apartment.

I arrived back in Suzhou this evening! I had a nice trip and will write more about it this weekend. I have many “old” posts down below that I hadn’t pushed the publish button on. They have their original dates so that the context remains the same.