Egypt Adventure

The time was here for the big event, our adventure tour to Egypt. Day one was lost somewhere in a time warp due to the eight hour difference in time between the U.S. and Egypt. Before the warp, most of the day was spent wandering around JRK airport in New York trying to find Egypt Air.

JFK has an intelligence test for finding your departure gate that does not point you to International flights or specific airlines, but to different terminals. Later we found out that the terminal can change for the same airline. I guess we flunked the test as we did not know which terminal we wanted.

We wandered through several doors that were marked "no return" looking for the right direction. We asked door attendants or anyone who looked as if they might work for the airport , "Where is Egypt Air?". It was always downstairs or upstairs or both. "I've never been so tired of dragging a suitcase in my life. Why, oh why, did we decide to carry luggage on instead of checking it?

We followed signs for Terminal 4 outside and crossed streets dodging cabs and climbing stairs with suitcases. Could this possibly be the way to get there or just a new way to aggravate travelers? What a nightmare! Finally, we found the AirTrain that went to Terminal 4. It was remarkably similar to the London Underground, but it did take us to the allusive Terminal 4 instead of Cockfoster, so we knew we were in the right country at least.

Our Delta plane from Nashville had been a connector plane about the size of one of my grandson's toys, two seats on one side and one on the other. We had to beg for seats together when we picked up boarding passes.

The Egypt Air plane, in contrast, was the size of a high school auditorium, and held about 260 passengers, a lot of people to squeeze into a tight space for 9½ hours. We had met up with the rest of our travel group from other parts of the country in New York and flew together to Egypt.

Flying was the usual tiresome hassle of closing your eyes and pretending to sleep while they pretend it is night and a few hours later turn on the lights and wake you up for breakfast. It was impossible to sleep due to crying babies, screaming children, people talking, and the constant stream of people going back and forth to the restroom.

Landing in Egypt, we were in the back of the plane and by the time we got off the rest of the group had run to baggage claim and forgotten all about us. We were not experienced travelers who knew the routine and landing in a foreign country with no idea where to go or what to do next was a bit disorienting.

Between the plane and baggage pick-up, we had to go through customs and once through, there was no return. Fortunately, we finally caught up with the group. They could not imagine why we were upset because they had not waited.

A representative from the travel agency met us at baggage pickup. We couldn't figure out why ours couldn't meet us at the plane like other tour guides, but after going all night without sleep, we just followed instructions like cattle.

We tied the required red ribbons on our luggage that would come to identify our group as the "red group" vs. the "blue group". We were just happy to know that we were actually in Egypt.

The days to follow might be a great adventure, but right now the only adventure I really wanted was to go to bed and sleep in a real bed with real pillows and no turbulence or crying children until morning.