in transit...

... cooling my jets in the Newark airport. Uneventful trip thus far, if you are very generous with the allowance you will permit for excessive lag time. Up at 5:15 am, to get across town in Chattanooga, on the flight that left at 7:15. Fast easy TSA process. It was pretty speedy compared to the business-as-usual tedious inching que in ATL. Plus, we did not have to inch through ATL at all today, just travel on the underground plane-train from one concourse to another to get the flight from ATL to NJ.

Not being the one who makes travel arrangements (ever) for myself, I had no idea I would be killing time in Joisey, waiting for Iceland Air. Not just waiting for the chance to board the flight, but actually waiting for the employees to staff the check in desk so we can get our printed passes to make the jaunt through TSA again here. Our bags were checked in TN, through to NJ. Causing us to wait in ATL for cargo to unload so we could retrieve luggage and proceed to drag around up and down escalators, like a little waddling row of ducklings following their mother. Me with my gimpy knee at the tail end of the line.

The vast majority of employees in this massive, multi-level facility are obviously foreign nationals. I wonder if the HR people deliberately hire from all over the planet. I am convinced they are tasked with seeking out workers who speak a wide array of obscure tongues: on stand by if needed as translation staffers for waylaid or misplaced travelers. We asked several workers for directions to the desk where we would check our 'rolling chests-or-drawers', filled with multiple changes of clothing.  No one could even understand we were aiming for Iceland and not Ireland.

After asking several times and getting really 'bad intel', we found a 'native': anyone whose first language is English!. After we had made several trips up and down,up-and-down, upanddown escalators due to being profoundly misled, the 'local' guy had good intel.He informed us we were quite close to the desk, had nearly arrived. Adjacent to that the place where we would check luggage and get new boarding passes.

 But there is only one flight each day, and we were hours early. Employees of Iceland Air do not even open their space until mid-afternoon. Now we see a serious dearth of seating in the Newark airport. I don't know if chairs were removed post 9-ll or there has always been a shortage, but very few places in the terminal to rest your weary bones. Plenty on the concourses, but very few for those of us with hours to waste in the terminal area.

Even so: here we are, sitting, watching passers-by, rolling their luggage to-and-fro. Viewing the United Nations of travelers as pedestrians pass by in a wide variety of clothing items/unlikely attire. Some making me want to wave them down and say: 'does your mother know you are out in public dressed like that?' And others that make me hope I don't fall out of my chair laughing at their choices.
Happily blogging away......