layover

A live post to interrupt the series of canned posts!

I'm at JFK, having arrived about 20 minutes earlier than scheduled. Before we took off, I started out sitting in Row 18 next to a gorgeous blonde woman, but when a flight attendant came by to offer me my very own empty row (an exit-row seat), I looked apologetically at my seatmate, told her she'd probably appreciate the breathing room, and got up to move.

"Our time together was so brief," she teased. She really was cute. Why do all the cute ones like to travel? Ah, well. Another lost opportunity.

Like our time together, the flight from DC to New York was all too brief. We landed a bit hard; a child in one of the seats ahead of me shouted on impact. Deplaning was a breeze, although my path to the baggage claim led me first outside, then into what felt like a secret stairway before I finally emerged in the airport proper. I got my bag (which was, miraculously, one of the very first off the plane), then had to figure out how to get from the Delta terminal to the Asiana check-in desk.

Success. A security guard told me about JFK's "Air Train" tram service, which took me from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4. I got to the Asiana desk by 8:30AM; no staffers were there at first; we early birds had to wait until 9:40AM before we were allowed to queue up to check in. Check-in was. thankfully, a breeze.

So here I sit at Gate B31, waiting. It's 10:40AM, and my flight isn't until 1PM. I doubt this MacBook has enough battery power for me to remain online indefinitely. So... what to do? Find a wall socket, most likely.

Ah, yes: JFK has a powerful Wi-Fi service, but it isn't free: the damn thing costs $5 a month. Welcome to fuckin' New Yawk, right? Apparently, the service—called Boingo Wireless—is available even in Seoul, so now that I've paid for it, I ought to find Wi-Fi hot spots more easily. I'll likely cancel Boingo once I'm back in the States. For now, it's a tiny but slightly advantageous investment, especially since, at JFK Airport, it seems to be the only viable game in town.

And that's all for now. More scheduled posts soon!


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