By watching my best friend Jeff and his wife having to pack half of their clothes into a cardboard box, I had an idea of how to deal with the situation if Grace’s duffle bags were overweight. She thought maybe the ticket clerk wouldn’t charge her if the bags were just a few pounds over. I knew better. I guess it’s just the cynic in me but if these bags were even a half of a pound over, we would be forking over the extra fifteen bucks they charge for overweight luggage.
In an effort to prevent wasting time at the ticket counter, I decided to be proactive and started weighing the bags at an empty ticket counter. I wrestled the first bag up on to the scale and it weighed in at 52.5 pounds. This was not encouraging so I quickly dragged the second bag up on the scale. I cried out, “its 54 pounds” as I read the digital screen. Grace looked at me with horror on her face. “Don’t shout out the numbers,” she said to me in a hushed tone.
I checked myself knowing my voice gets louder and louder when I get anxious or nervous. But, I had an idea of how to solve this problem before it was our turn at the ticket counter. I had weighted my suitcase last night after packing. It was only 37 pounds. We just need to transfer some stuff from the duffle bags to my suitcase. We were the next in line so we had to move fast. I opened up my bag and told Grace to start moving stuff out of the duffle bags. She still believed the ticket clerk would let the bag pass without charging the overweight fee. I pitched the last duffle bag up on the scale and it read 57 pounds. Now I was worried that there was too much weight even if we used my suitcase.
Sweat popped out on my forehead as we opened up three duffle bags. To my surprise, I found boxes of Band-aids and packs of diapers inside instead of clothes. I had no idea we were taking donated medical supplies with us. I reached into the pile of gauze and boxes of latex gloves to find the heaviest items I could find to remove. After a few minutes of juggling cargo and losing a few places in the growing line of travelers, I had all the bags evened out at 50 pounds each. But, we had a small pile of stuff we needed to find a place for. I quickly packed the leftovers into my backpack, which I was using as a carry-on bag. Crisis averted. We checked in and rushed to the security line.
Navigating JFK Airport in New York turned out to be a bit of a challenge. When we got off the plane, we couldn’t figure out how to go to catch our connecting flight. We were not in a concourse with multiple gates and monitors with departing flight information. It was just a hallway leading away from the plane. I began looking for some kind of airport map while Grace looked for someone to give us directions. Grace found a person before I could find a map.
Once again my anxiety level started creeping skyward when Grace told me we would have to leave the terminal and take a train around the airport to our destination. Leaving the terminal meant we would have to go through another line at a ticket counter. We would also have to go through security again which meant I would have to take off my boots and open up my camera case again. I thought once you got checked out at the first airport you wouldn’t have to do the dog and pony show again. I was wrong.
Of course we got on the wrong train. Turns out that JFK has three different trains moving between ten different terminals. Some helpful fellow travelers set us in the right direction when they saw the panic on my face. As always I was worried about time. It took us two hours to get from our arrival gate to our connecting flight. Hopefully in Zurich we will not have to leave the terminal and go through the ticket line and the security line for a third time. I’m a bit worried that we only have a little over an hour to make our connection and we have been sitting on a runway in New York for the last hour and a half. We are on our way now but I feel our flight out of Zurich may be in jeopardy. But hey, I’m on vacation. I need to chill and enjoy all the in’s and out’s of international travel. We have an eight-hour flight ahead packed with free movies and a gourmet dinner. How could life get any better?
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