Crossing the Big Pond

My journey started with a few days in NJ with Jane where we visited NYC for New Years. My flight got cancelled so I got there a lot later than planned on New Years Eve. Since we were a lot later than originally planned, we were only able to get within 10 blocks of the ball but the excitement and screaming of the crowd made it totally worth it! There were great fireworks afterwards too! We spent the next few days just hanging out and shopping before my flight left on January 3.

I flew IcelandAir from JFK to Reykjavík to London. I watched 500 Days of Summer and then slept for about 3 hours. There was a lot of turbulence so I didn't feel so well for the first part of the flight and they didn't provide us with meals so I paid for a sandwich which I didn't eat too much of. The flight left about an hour late from JFK because we had to sit on the runway forever so we got into Iceland late. I really wanted to get a souvenir from Iceland, so I walked as quickly as I could to the shops at the complete opposite end of the concourse from my gate and ended up buying a postcard and a pair of nice Icelandic wool socks because the tshirts were pretty lame. I had no idea how much I was paying because I didn’t know the Icelandic currency, but I think it ended up being about $11, so not a bad purchase.

The flight out of Iceland ended up getting delayed by almost 2 hours because of technical problems with the plane so we had to wait for them to get a different plane and do all their checks and whatnot. So I was in a rush when I got to London because I didn’t want to miss the group transportation. Turns out there were a bunch of flight problems, so they held the transportation late and I made it after much confusion about where to go. London was total chaos when I got there. I practically ran from my plane to baggage claim. Luckily customs went smoothly and very quickly and then both of my bags made it even though the baggage took forever. I got out to the area where everyone was standing with signs expecting to see someone from Arcadia waiting but after what felt like forever of looking around I couldn't find anyone and I figured I must have missed it. So I called the Arcadia office and they said someone was there and I still couldn't find them so I went to airport information and they started making announcements. Finally airport information called Arcadia again for me and we figured out I was supposed to go to a different concourse which was really far away so as tired as I already was, I walked the 15-20 min walk underground pulling my 2 50 pound suitcases. I did finally find the group though and we got to the hotel and everyone pretty much passed out.

NYC for New Years

View of Iceland from the airplane as the sun was rising