Anyway- we made it to the bus station in good time via cab (as much as we were keen to transverse those Providence hills on foot), picked up our paper tickets and waiting for the Peter Pan to pull up.
In Nassau-like fashion, Peter was about 14 minutes late (not impressed guys). For some reason (my guess is that she still can fly under "student status" and I've outgrown that label for now), Steph's ticket was "RESERVED" and mine was "STANDARD". In many cases, I don't think this would have posed a problem for us, but, in this particular case, the bus en route to NYC was already almost at capacity. The Conductor exited the cockpit, and surveyed the litany of people waiting around, eager to board and then announced, rather, authoritatively, "RESERVED PASSENGERS LINE UP HERE...EVERYONE ELSE OVER HERE". Somewhat bemused at this order, we followed suit, and it quickly became apparent that there would be no available seats left for the "STANDARDS" after all. Realistically, there were other buses later in the day, cabs, trains (costing more than $100 bucks for the voyage) and probably various other methods of transport that could have been negotiated, had we (or more accurately, I, missed this bus, BUT, the ticket had already been purchased (for $44) and my preference was certainly to not have to deal with the increased stress of figuring all these other details out, with all my luggage and the inevasible possibility of not getting to JFK in time (and all the ramifications of that...)
So...up to the plate stepped S. Wilkins: and she brought out all the charms for this one folks, I have to give her that. After some soft words of exchange, in which she says she mentioned something about the two of us having a plane to catch (and who knows what else), he began to nod his head subtly in capitulation and Steph indicated that I could indeed load by luggage in the cabin and hop aboard. The 8 people that were standing in front of me had so such luck, unfortunately. (In our defense, we had arrived at the station far in advance, before any of those other voyagers arrived so that counts..right?)
Our seats, by the way, were directly adjacent to the on-board toilet (as if that isn't justice in karmic justice in action;). In any case, the ride was uneventful save for the massive motion sickness I was experiencing by the end of it and the lady seated in front of us that was playing her music so loudly that it could be heard at the front of the Coach. (Steph said she was tempted to say something;)
Once at "Port Authority Station" in NYC, we grabbed some lunch from, you guessed it, Au Bon Pain, and then caught the $15 shuttle to JFK, which resulted in further nausea. In addition, Stephanie also engendered some amusement when she pulled out a pen of hers, wrapped in black duct tape because "we might need that for something during the trip and this way it saves space". Ladies and Gentlemen- that is Stephanie Wilkins for you.
Stephanie also took these gems in the process:
You'll notice that when it comes to clothing choices, Stephanie has decided to play it safely here by imitating me (how can you go wrong if you do that- right?);))))KML
Good thing that we did in fact leave on the 8:40am bus ride- because once we arrived at JKF, it was already almost 3- flight was leaving at 5:50pm. This was one situation in which caution paid off. For me, being at the airport 3 HOURS AHEAD OF TIME (International flight or not) was a completely new experience;) Can we say milestone for Alanna Rodgers?
So in the Swissair departure terminal, Steph and I said some of our final goodbyes to the crew and anticipated what the upcoming flight would be like. We were happy to have made it this far.
On the plane, Steph and I had the 2 seats on the row end. The deal was, I gave her the window, and in exchange, she would give me the aisle on the Zurich-JHB leg (which was 2 hours longer) when we were placed in a middle row of 4. (Again- which would you select?)
As she always does (and this is a good thing), Stephanie entertained herself by looking out the window and noting the apparent "faster-than-normal" speed of our aircraft:
None of us slept on the flight for more than 45 mins I don't think BUT, Swissair did have its perks- well, you know, as many perks as an airline can have when you are traveling "economy". They included:
- A fair meal of (accidentally ordered vegan) ratatouille and brown rice, with dried apples, a iceberg salad concoction and raisins (they were taking the fruit and veg thing to a whole new level).
- miniature wine bottles for the taking
- Swiss Chocolate: the non-vegan meals were served with some sort of milka brownie treat, from what I could surreptitiously make out, BUT, since we were denied this and the gruyere cheese and bread, we had to ask for chocolate explicitly- and we received these little gems below;) Don't think we were missing out on that one buddy!!
- While the leg room was poor- the media center was wicked- up to date movies, tv shows, radio channels, games- Steph and I both watched 3 days later in unison, enthralled the entire time- so that was 2 hours of solid entertainment.
Then, just like that, they asked us to push up the window screens, and it was light outside again as we arrived in Zurich.
Stay Tuned...
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