50 hours from San Francisco to my destination....
11 July 2005
A quick list of events:
- Depart San Francisco at 10:45AM for Chicago
- Depart Chicago for Amsterdam Netherlands
- Almost 3 hours into the 7 hour flight we are diverted for a problem to New York City JFK airport.
- Sit on the plane for 4 hours until we are provided with hotel rooms in New York City.
- I arrive at my room at 3AM Sunday. The hotel is 3 blocks from Times Square. Hotel and food compliments of the airline.
- Cant sleep so at 7AM I realize and am shocked there are no Internet connections in the hotel.
- Decide to walk around Manhattan until my rescheduled flight time of 6PM Sunday. See Times Square, Grand Central Station, Empire State Building, and the World Trade Center site.
- At 4PM I arrive back at JFK airport in New York City. The airline was great about this and could not avoid the inconvenience of the passengers. The problem was of all things a gas tank leak and not something that would be worthwhile continuing over open ocean or a quick band aid solution in New York.
- Original 6PM departure is delayed until 7:30PM because of plane traffic at JFK. Also confirmed the plane was a new one.
- Finally arrive in Amsterdam Netherlands at 8:30AM Monday (today) with very little sleep and with hundreds of kilometers to drive today.
- Depart for Zwarsluis for lunch and a few hours of sailing on a historic boat from 1856
- Have dinner in Ommen and realize that I am badly sunburned.
- Finally arrive at my hotel in Enschede many hours late and needing sleep and some planning time for some visits and meetings in the morning.
I return this Friday and am trying to now repair my already compressed schedule which just got more compressed because of the flight problems. More details and photos later after I get some work done and then some much needed sleep. When I do post some of the photos, they will be located in my Image Gallery Daily Grind II.
Shaan