This was my first trip to BEA. I’d seen write-ups on past BEAs and thought I had a general understanding of what to expect. Boy, was I wrong!
My trip to NY was downright horrid. I decided to fly up to NY rather than taking train. We were experiencing thunderstorms in the DC area and air traffic control shut down all air traffic. My flight was supposed to depart at 5 pm and didn’t depart until almost nine. To make things worse, we weren’t even sitting in the airport. We were in the plane, stuck on the tarmac, waiting in line to take off. Over an hour passed and they started letting planes take off. Of course, half of our plane was filled with passengers with connections. They were no longer going to make these connections and requested that they be returned back to the gate. So, our plane gets out of line and slowly returns to the gate to allow people to get off. Luckily, we’re able to get back to our spot in line and take off three hours after we were scheduled.
Now, I must mention, Trish from Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’? was waiting for me at JFK. She and I were roomies for the duration of BEA. Originally, had my plane been on time, she would have only had to wait around 30 minutes for my plane to arrive. Instead, she waited at the airport for 5 hours! So I wanted to thank her again for waiting for me!
Ok, so I get to JFK, meet up with Trish, and then we board a shuttle to Manhattan. Have you seen The Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix movie? Remember the really scary bus driver, who zoomed all throughout London, barely avoiding several severe accidents? Well, I think that was our bus driver! He drove at speeds that exceeded, in my opinion, the safest speed for a bus of that size.
We arrived at our hotel around midnight, and hit the sack relatively early because we had plans to head to the Javits center to pick up a few author signing tickets. While my travel experience to NY was less than desireable and I was beyond exhausted, it was difficult for me to fall asleep, knowing what I was about to experience the following day…
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