PCB and the NYC Return, Part Five (Leaving on a jet plane)

And so it’s my last day in NYC already. I am having a long brunch with my dear friend Rachel, who is British but her father is American so she has just moved to NYC. She lives in the West Village in a teeny tiny apartment. I get to her place at about noon, dump my bags and we head out to a local diner for food. Whenever I see her, once we’re done catching each other up on our lives, we love nothing more than bitchy celebrity gossip. So that’s what we do.

She lives about a block and a half from Magnolia Bakery, so after we’re done at the diner, we stop by for cup cakes and red velvet cake. The place is heaving so we take it back to her apartment and spend a couple more hours of idle chatter. And then all too soon it’s time for me to leave for the airport. Thinking that as it’s a Sunday afternoon, the journey won’t be too bad to JFK, I don’t get a cab until about 4:15pm. I don’t get to JFK until a little after 5pm as it’s insanely bad traffic all the way. And the fun is only just beginning.

Having had the worst time getting out of JFK when I arrived, I now have the worst time checking back in. Rather than having each flight allocated to a set of desks, Delta has the bright idea of having all check in desks available for all international flights and just having one line. Said line is out of the terminal and down the street. My flight closes in 45 minutes. Fuck. Miraculously, they get it together and I get checked in. I then have to take my checked in baggage to a different end of the terminal as for some reason they can’t put it on the conveyor belts. I queue again to do this. I then queue once more to pass through security, which involves removing my belt, shoes, watch, ring, inhaler, loose change and god knows what else from my person. I make it to the gate at 6:15pm and luckily as the flight is only a third full, they haven’t started boarding yet.

We’re boarded and ready for take off 10 minutes early. So are 40 other planes, and we get an hour’s delay. Fun. I take two max strength Tylenol PM and the next thing I know, I’m being served breakfast about an hour outside of Gatwick. Praise be.

The idea behind such a lightning fast visit was I wouldn’t give myself time to get too attached again. It didn’t work. Within 30 minutes of being in Manhattan, I didn’t want to leave again. The trip as a whole was much more difficult and emotional than I expected it to be. I was very grateful to the network of friends I spent time with for making it as much fun as it could be though. As for what the future holds, who can say?