JFDelay...Delay...Delay

"Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings."
--John F. Kennedy

Juxtapose that quotation against the atrocity that is the airport named after the man, and the end result is one of modern America's greatest ironies. On July 1st, shortly after escaping Cleveland, Chris and I landed in JFK and quickly huffed it to our gate. We were concerned that the small window left to us after our delayed flight would close, blocking us from Ireland forever (or at least for another day or two.) Our concerns proved misplaced however, because arriving at the at the gate around 9:30 for the 10 o'clock flight we found no Delta employees. We stood there with a couple of other displaced Dublin travelers who had been forced to likewise accept a Shannon flight or suffer the indescribable horrors of a night in Cleveland. A mere five minutes to ten the girl finally made an appearance at the desk and got our new boarding passes printed out. Then we waited. 10 came and went, and still we waited. The girl came over the intercom three times to tell us that she didn't know anything. Finally, the board showed our departure as now being 11:45. The girl came back over the intercom and finally had some actual news: Delta corporate in Atlanta had called up to New York and had ordered our plane switched out for another, larger plane because of possible mechanical issues. That meant a we had to change gates.

Thus, the great JFK circus began. Our gate was changed with a flight to Bogota and within minutes the place was crawling with hundreds of Colombians. The kids were kicking balls around, the adults were raving in Spanish, and an impromptu concert of novice violinists started up.

Those of us trying to get to Shannon dutifully changed gates and proceeded to wait as our departure time went from 11:45 to 12:30 to 1:oo to 1:40. Boarding finally began around 2am but the plane had been upgraded from a 737 to a 767 so the seat assignments all had to be changed. Suffice to say, what ensued was near chaos. The girl who had been our agent the whole night did the best she could, but it was clear that the New York public education system had failed her miserably, and we were suffering the effects of trickle down ignorance.

Our plane didn't actually leave the ground until 3am. In that time we made friends with two of the other displaced Dubliners who offered us the opportunity to chip in and ride along with them in a rental car from Shannon to Dublin since Chris and I are both to young to rent cars. With that to think over, we headed across the Atlantic. I personally passed straight out, and slept almost the entire six hours. Chris maybe got three by his calculations. His tortures continued as, unable to sleep, he was subjected to the two inflight excuses for movies they played: Zac Efron's 17 Again and the Rock's remake of Escape to Witch Mountain. No doubt these films were selected because of the eighty or so children that were on our flight from some group called "People to People: Peace Ambassadors." When I asked one of these youths what exactly they did, he answered, "bring world peace to other countries." I simply nodded politely and walked a safe distance away to laugh uncontrollably.

Around 2 in the afternoon on the 2nd, after five hours in Cleveland, five hours in New York, and another six hours in the air, we arrived at Shannon. We made it to Ireland on the day we meant to, but in the wrong city. A city all the way across the country from where we needed to be that night.

Stay tuned for the Shannon to Dublin chapter.