Keflavik to Tampa, September 13, 2019

Oh dear.  It’s time to go home.  We get up at four a.m. so as to be ready for breakfast at five.  This such a civilized B&B Hotel that they begin serving breakfast at four!  Lots of people coming and going at all hours!  The offerings are all pretty much the same, although there is tuna salad!  It’s got eggs in in but I don’t have to have another sliced, hard-boiled egg with my meat, cheese, tomatoes, and cucumbers!  But the coffee is good!

Our last Icelandic breakfast!

We report to the lobby before six, as instructed, and there are LOTS of other people who will be going to the airport with us.  In fact, they bring a bus to hold us all and most of us stand up with our luggage.  The stop up is about three feet tall (no lie!) And I have no hope of hoisting my thirty-nine pound suitcase up it!  Marilyn does it for me;  I can barely get myself up there with all my gear on my back and shoulders!  Happily it is only about fifteen minutes to KEF. 

Once inside we find the monitor that says Delta will be checking in at desks 11-15 and we join the queue. There are several security persons with handheld passport readers who ask everyone a series of questions, like, where did you spend last night;  what was your favorite thing that you saw or did;  what cruise like are you on, who are you traveling with and how to you know them….weird questions! 

When it’s our turn we get our boarding passes for both our flights and head for security.  Marilyn gets pulled out for a special check and then they inspect her bag as well.  I’m feeling pretty good - but my turn is coming!  Then it’s a walk through the duty free shop and Marilyn goes on to our gate while I do my last minute shopping.  I get there with my goodies all sealed up and they call my name!  I’m already fretting because my TSA-Pre check doesn’t show up on my second flight.  Little did I know that was the least of the concerns.  It seems that about thirty of us have been selected for special screening!!  Several of us have GOES cards as well as pre-check;  but the doesn’t matter.  One by one they call us up with all our belongs.  A young woman swabs both sides of my hands, the tops of my socks, the skin around my waist, all my electronics, which have been removed from my bags, and my shoes.  Meanwhile passengers are boarding and I can feel all the overhead space being taken!

I’m finally deemed no security risk and am allowed to board.  No one else is going at the same time and I just have to hope that at the top of the stairs there will be a hint where to go!  I see some people queued up and ask if this is the flight to JFK!  The guy in front of me says that flying out of Keflavik is always like this, although the security lady said it was a TSA think.  Who knows?  Anyway, if finally get on the plane and I figure I’ll stash my little bag in the first open space I see and stuff my backpack under the seat; but when I get to row 33 there is a space for it!!  I stuff it in and, when the aisle is clear, go retrieve my little bag - the one with my flight-survival gear!

And we’re off for our five and a half hour flight to New York.  There is a brunch about an hour or so into the flight with turkey and cheese on a croissant, mixed fruit, cheese and crackers, and two ginger cookies!  Just before we land there is a choice of Cheez-its of cookies, and of course, beverages.  During the flight I watch “Late Night” with Emma Thompson (spoiler alert - it’s really good!) And “Hustle”, which is pretty funny and reminds me of the Steve Martin movie about the two male conmen, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”.  I see most of “Bad Reputation” about Joan Jett, which is interesting.

We arrive in Terminal 4 at JFK and hike to the GOES machines.  That goes smoothly, even though it darn thing only reads three of my finger prints.  I guess that’s enough.  Then we claim our bags and head for the Delta counter to recheck them.  I want to get my Pre-check thing fixed so I go to an agent.  She needs me to write down my number!  Luckily I have it in my phone.  New boarding pass in hand I have to go back to where Marilyn dropped her bag.  It looks to me like they all go to the same place;  but never mind!  We trek along, looking for Terminal 2, from which our next flight departs.  I finally ask a young man who directs us up an escalator to the air train upstairs.  We get off at the stop for Terminal 2 and discover that we’ll be going outside, across the street, down the block, and around the corner!  It reminds of us New Zealand, except here we have signs to follow and there, there was a line on the sidewalk!

Eventually we get to security and go to the Pre-check line.  Guess what.  It’s closed and we have to go through the regular line.  The only advantage is that we don’t have to take off our shoes!  That hurdle out of the way, we find our gate and look for some lunch.  We find ourselves at the Brooklyn Beergarden.  You order from the tablets standing on each table and pay by swiping your card on the adjacent card reader.  Marilyn says her burger doesn’t say it comes with fries, so she orders them separately;  mine doesn’t say so, either, but there are some in the picture, and if not, I don’t really need them anyway!

Turns out they both come with the crunchy little devils and then her extra order comes!  She explains the situation and the manager takes them off her bill.  We’re settled in for the duration, since we’ve still got a couple of hours before we board, and they don’t need our table.  I still have a little of my Corona left, and I can nurse that for a while!

(I neglected the most interesting part of the flight to JFK!  I had the aisle seat and the young man in the middle seat needed to go to the restroom.  We successfully performed the dance that’s required and while he was gone, brunch was served.  If I put down my tray table, he’d never stand a chance of getting back into his seat, so I kept my tray on top of my coat which was in my lap.  My seat mate was trapped by the food cart, so it was quite a while before he could get back.  That meant that I ate most of my lunch, and balanced my gran-apple juice, with my tray precariously balanced on my coat!  By the time he escaped and returned to our row, I was basically finished!)

Anyway, after we’ve finished our burgers we head over to our gate and find another table with power, so we can keep our phones charged.  Finally, boarding begins.  Marilyn’s seat is in Main Cabin 1, and mine is in Main Cabin 3.  She wants me to try to board with her;  but I demur.  Glad I did!  The ticket Nazi turns back everyone who tries to jump the line!!  When it’s finally my turn I approach my seat to find it already occupied.  The lady in it asks me if I’d like to fly in first class!!  Gee, let me think!  I have no idea what that was about but I win the seat lottery and have I C!  Of course, I have to swim upstream to get there.  I duck into the row that the flight attendant is occupying and she says she’ll try to make her way back up and clear a path for me.  I say he probably has a better chance than I, and she says I’d be surprised!!  Soon the trickle of passengers dies down and I make it to my aisle seat in first class (my first ever!) 

It’s the front row and has lots of leg room!  The attendant takes my back pack and stashes it for me and asks me what I’d like to drink!  My seat mate has some sort of cocktail!  I settle for water and she keeps bringing me new bottles during the entire flight!  Twice she passes us a basket filled with different treats like Toblerone and a French cookie with chocolate topping!

When it’s time to land the attendant fetches the men’s coats, which she had hung for them.  She had offered to hang mine up, too.  It’s nice to see how the other half lives!  The landing is smooth and we claim our baggage in record time!  Ole has been hanging out at work, waiting for us to arrive, and quite soon his jazzy new Hyundai Veloster scoops us up and delivers, first Marilyn, then me, to our own beds!  We exchange some travel stories and the cats seem quite happy to have me home!  They don’t know how soon I’ll be leaving again!!